Colli-makers: new materials for collimator design

Margarita Synanidi — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 13:51:23 +0000

Colli-makers: new materials for collimator design
by Kate Kahle (CERN) with Adrian Giordani and Bruce Etherington

The four aspects of EuCARD ColMat task 8.2 “Modelling, Materials, Tests for Hadron Beams” (click image to enlarge). Image credit: Alessandro Bertarelli, CERN.

Work presented at EuCARD’s Annual Meeting highlights important developments for the next-generation of collimators. The results not only impact the LHC’s performance, they also have the potential to go beyond pure accelerator applications.

To bring the LHC beyond its nominal performance, a new generation of collimators will be needed with advanced materials. The ColMat Task 8.2, part of work package 8 of the EuCARD project, is testing a variety of composite materials for the production of prototypes. These tests include shock-wave analysis, FLUKA and LS-Dyna software simulations, irradiation studies, and mechanical tests.

To be effective, collimation systems must satisfy two main functions: removing stray particles, which would induce quenches in super-conducting magnets; and shielding other machine components from beam orbit errors. Metal Matrix Composites, such as diamond or graphite reinforcements, as well as copper and diamond, and molybdenum and diamond, are being studied to assess their qualities in addressing the intrinsic limitations in current collimators.

From the initial tests, Metal Matrix Composites with diamond reinforcements have shown to be particularly promising as they combine properties such as robustness and high thermal and electrical conductivity from both compounds. Not only does this benefit future collimators, but Alessandro Bertarelli highlighted in his presentation and subsequent report that this R&D programme has the potential to be useful to nuclear, aerospace and thermal management communities as well.

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Colli-makers: new materials for collimator design