Examination of Beryllium Under Intense High Energy Proton Beam at CERN's HiRadMat Facility

Beryllium is extensively used in various accelerator beam lines and target facilities as material for beam win- dows, and to a lesser extent, as secondary particle produc- tion targets. With increasing beam intensities of future ac- celerator facilities, it is critical to understand the response of beryllium under extreme conditions to avoid compro- mising particle production efficiency by limiting beam pa- rameters. As a result, the planned experiment at CERN’s HiRadMat facility will take advantage of the test facility’s tunable high intensity proton beam to probe and investigate the damage mechanisms of several grades of beryllium. The test matrix will consist of multiple arrays of thin discs of varying thicknesses as well as cylinders, each exposed to increasing beam intensities. Online instrumentations will acquire real time temperature, strain, and vibration data of the cylinders, while Post-Irradiation-Examination (PIE) of the discs will exploit advanced microstructural characteri- zation and imaging techniques to analyze grain structures, crack morphology and surface evolution. Details on the ex- perimental design, online measurements and planned PIE efforts are described in this paper.