Analysis and Operational Feedback on the New Design of the High Energy Beam Dump in the CERN SPS

CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) high-energy internal dump (Target Internal Dump Vertical Graphite, known as TIDVG) is required to intercept beams from 10² to 450 GeV. The equipment installed in 2014 (TIDVG#3) featured an absorbing core composed of different materials surrounded by a water-cooled copper jacket, which hold the UHV of the machine. An inspection of a previous equipment (TIDVG#2) in 2013 revealed significant beam induced damage to the aluminium section of the dump, which required imposing operational limitations to minimise the risk of reproducing this phenomenon. Additionally, in 2016 a vacuum leak was detected in the dump assembly, which imposed further limitations, i.e. a reduction of the beam intensity that could be dumped per SPS supercycle. This paper presents a new design (TIDVG#4), which focuses on improving the operational robustness of the device. Moreover, thanks to the added instrumentation, a careful analysis of its performance (both experimentally and during operation) will be possible. These studies will help validating technical solutions for the design of the future SPS dump to be installed during CERN's Long Shutdown 2 in 2020 (TIDVG#5).