Calculations of dose attenuation in slowly curving tunnel geometries at a high-energy proton accelerator

The CERN Neutrino beam to Gran Sasso (CNGS) project and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will receive 450 GeV/c protons extracted from the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS). In the tunnels leading to the CNGS target and the LHC accelerator there is a 150 m straight section where a beam dump (TED) can be moved into the beam chamber, intercepting the proton beam. After the TED, the beam is routed into either the 700m slowly curving TT41 tunnel (CNGS) or the TI8 tunnel consisting of a 400 m straight section followed by a curved 1.5 km long tunnel (LHC). The curved tunnels have a radius of approximately 1 km. During tests a proton beam of 1.2 multiplied by 10**1**3 s**- **1 could be sent to the dump. The question posed was how close to the TED could access be allowed during dumping operations. Initial simulations using the FLUKA Monte-Carlo transport program were optimised assuming that the high-energy muon contribution dominates. Discrepancies with an analytically based calculation led to a revision of this optimisation. Further simulations showed that the radiation field deep in the slowly curving tunnels was dominated by the scattering of low-energy muons in the walls. These were also more important than the low-energy neutrons. This paper describes these simulations, which were the first in the authors' experience where muon scattering dominated tunnel attenuation at a high-energy accelerator. 10 Refs.