Ionization Chambers as Beam Loss Monitors for ESS Linear Accelerator

The European Spallation Source (ESS) to be under construction in Lund, Sweden, will provide a highest average intensity beam from a 5 MW superconducting proton linear accelerator to produce spallation neutrons. A serious problem for high current accelerators is the high density of the beam, which is able to destroy the equipment, to make a quench of super conductive magnets. Loss of even a small fraction of this intense beam would result in high radiation and destruction of the equipment. The Beam Loss Monitor (BLM) system must be sensitive to different level of losses in different accelerator locations. The main ESS beam loss detector type is ionization chamber (icBLM). The detector is originally designed for CERN LHC and 4250 monitors were produced in 2006-2008, now widely used in almost all accelerators at CERN, in IHEP (Protvino, Russia). In 2014-2017 a new production of 830 icBLM was performed to replenish spares for LHC and to make series for ESS, GSI. The requirements, design, testing and layout for ESS accelerator are presented