Author: Simos, N.
Paper Title Page
THPFI083 Radiation Damage Study of Graphite and Carbon-carbon Composite Target Materials 3487
 
  • P. Hurh, K. Ammigan, N.V. Mokhov
    Fermilab, Batavia, USA
  • N. Simos
    BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York, USA
 
  Funding: Operated by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC02- 07CH11359 with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Use of graphite and carbon-carbon composite materials as high intensity proton targets for neutrino production is currently thought to be limited by thermal and structural material properties degraded by exposure to high energy proton beam. Identification of these limits for various irradiation and thermal environments is critical to high intensity targets for future facilities and experiments. To this end, several types of amorphous graphite and one type of carbon-carbon (3D weave) composite were exposed to 180 MeV proton beam at the BNL BLIP facility. Irradiated samples were then thermally, ultra-sonic, and structurally tested and compared to un-irradiated samples. Results show significant changes in material properties even at very low damage levels (<0.09 DPA) and that significant interstitial annealing of these properties occurs at annealing temperatures only slightly above irradiation temperature. This points the way to optimizing target operating temperature to increase target lifetime. A description of the plan to explore radiation damage in target materials through the new RaDIATE collaboration (Radiation Damage In Accelerator Target Environments) is also presented.