The scientific purpose of this experiment, conducted in August 2025, was to identify fracture limits of pre-cracked tungsten and titanium materials, validate simulations predicting pulsed-beam induced damage in ceramic nanofiber samples under atmospheric and vacuum conditions, and understand failure mechanisms, limitations, and flow behavior of various material specimens. The experimental set-up comprised of multiple arrays of specimens, each exposed to different beam intensities. A total of 72 samples were tested including conventional materials (graphite, and titanium alloys) and novel materials (Toughened Fine-Grained Recrystallized (TFGR) Tungsten, electrospun nanofiber materials (ZrO2, W), SiC, Pure W, and high-entropy alloys) pertinent to accelerator beam windows and secondary particle production targets.
HRMT-60 - RaDIATE Material Studies Nicht eingeplant 3h CERN Poster Cocktail - Poster session Beschreibung HRMT-60 experiment was performed at the CERN-HiRadMat facility in October 2022 to understand thermal shock response of conventional materials and novel materials to support the design and operation of future multi-MW accelerator beam windows and secondary particle-production targets. This experiment, organized within the framework of the RaDIATE collaboration, builds on the previous HRMT-43 (BeGrid2) experiment, where a variety of materials in both non-irradiated and previously proton-irradiated conditions were tested. The primary goal was to understand the failure mechanisms, limits and flow behavior of the various material specimens, as well as compare and contrast the thermal shock response of previously irradiated materials to their non-irradiated counterparts. A total of 120 samples were tested at different beam conditions. This poster will present the preliminary results of several materials tested during this experiments.
In the SPS, reliable monitoring of the transverse beam position across the wide range of different beam structures and intensities is essential for the stable and efficient operation of the complex system of machines, facilities and experiments that receive beam. The current calibration method of the Beam Position Monitors (BPMs), using polynomial fit, suffers from systematic errors in the position measurements, which increase significantly for off-centered beams. These errors can lead to reduced control of the extraction angle and compromise the stability of the delivered beam in facilities like HiRadMat. The goal of this study is to develop a machine learning-based calibration method that will allow us to more accurately map the response of the BPM electronics, minimize the systematic errors and improve the precision of beam position measurements, and thus the beam delivery reproducibility, while containing algorithm complexity, in the SPS complex, and beyond
Relativistic outflows enriched with electron-positron pair plasma can be found in various highly energetic astrophysical environments, e.g. around active galactic nuclei, black holes or in the jets of gamma ray bursts. Plasma instabilities associated with such pair-dominated outflows play an important role in explaining their energy dissipation and the radiative signatures we observe from these objects on Earth. In our last experiment, HRMT62 [1], inaugurating a newly developed experimental platform for such studies at the HiRadMat facility of CERN [2,3], high intensity, high density, ultra-relativistic, quasi-neutral electron- positron pair beam production was achieved, opening up the possibility to study the microphysics of such pair plasmas via experimental means. In the follow-up experiment, HRMT64, modifications including a secondary target and a magnetic collimating setup will be introduced in order to study the emergence of magnetic fields associated with the growth of filamentation instabilities as collimated relativistic pair-plasma beams propagate through ambient plasma; an analogue for the propagation of astrophysical pair jets through intergalactic medium.
HiRadMat is a facility constructed in 2011, designed to provide high-intensity pulsed beams to an irradiation area where different material samples or accelerator components can be tested. The facility, located at the CERN SPS accelerator complex, uses a 440 GeV proton beam with a pulse length up to 7.2 μs and a maximum intensity up to 1E13 protons / pulse. The facility, a unique place for performing state-of-the art beam-to-material experiments, operates under transnational access and welcomes and financially supports, under certain conditions, experimental teams to perform their experiments.