Study of the Lead Evaporation from the Oven of the GTS-LHC Ion Source

The GTS-LHC ECR ion source at CERN provides heavy ion beams for the chain of accelerators from Linac3 up to the LHC and the SPS fixed target experiments. During the standard operation the oven technique is used to insert lead into the source plasma to produce multiply charged lead ion beams. Many years of experience show that some of the source instabilities can be linked to the oven performance. The evaporation seems not to be constant and when the oven reaches its maximum power, an indication that a refill is required, often half of the original lead sample is still present inside the oven crucible. A dedicated study of the oven using an offline test stand as well as thermal and gas dynamics simulations intends to help to identify the reasons for these experimental observations. The goal is to find design modifications to stabilize the evaporation rate and to prolong the oven runtime. This contribution presents the latest results of the study.