Development of new target concepts for proton beams at CERN/ISOLDE

More and more, the power of primary beam sent onto targets increases until reaching several kiloWatts of magnitude, inducing new problematic and challenges. Consequently, the need of new target design arises and leads to new conceptual design proposal. Amongst them, a concept of Lead Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) loop target making use of an heat exchanger (HEX) and a pump has been proposed during the European project EURISOL Design Study. This concept proposed an improvement in terms of release efficiency of short-lived species by transforming the irradiated liquid into droplets shape. This thesis presents the development of this target design proposal. A prototype target has been developed and will be tested under proton beam at ISOLDE at Cern, Geneva. Several analytical tools for the study of this kind of targets are proposed, taking into account different design parameters. These tools can be applied for other high power target concept and allow an easy dimensioning of this kind of targets. As well, an innovative heat exchanger is developed, allowing to extract constant power out of the target for different LBE temperature. The proposed target design is validated thanks to different numerical and analytical tools while experimental tests have been conducted in order to assess the droplet formation feasibility. These tests prove that a shower of droplets of 400 μm is possible. The developed target is the first one combining a diffusion chamber where a shower is created combined with a pump and a HEX. The concepts of this design could be applied for similar targets that could be developed in other facilities.