Irradiation of Low-Z Carbon-Based Materials with 440 GeV/c Proton Beam for High Energy & Intensity Beam Absorbers: The CERN HiRadMat-56-HED Experiment

The beam stored energy and the peak intensity of CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will grow in the next few years. The former will increase from the 320 MJ values of Run2 (2015-2018) to almost 540 MJ during Run3 (2022 onwards) and 680 MJ during the HL-LHC era putting stringent requirements on beam intercepting devices, such as absorbers and dumps. The HiRadMat-56-HED (High-Energy Dumps) experiment performed in Autumn 2021 executed at CERN HiRadMat facility employed the Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator (SPS) 440 GeV/c proton beam to impact different low-density carbon-based materials targets to assess their performance to these higher energy beam conditions. The study focused on advanced grades of graphitic materials, including isostatic graphite, carbon-fiber reinforced carbon and carbon-SiC materials in addition to flexible expanded graphite. Some of them specifically tailored in collaboration with industry to very specific properties. The objectives of this experiment are: (i) to assess the performance of existing and potentially suitable advanced materials for the currently operating LHC beam dumps and (ii) to study alternative materials for the HL-LHC main dump or for the Future Circular Collider dump systems. The contribution will detail the R&D phase during design, the execution of the experiment, the pre-irradiation tests as well as the first post irradiation examination of the target materials. Lessons learnt and impact on operational devices will also be drawn.