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DRAFT<br />

Figure 2.4.112: Location of beam catcher positions behind the degrader station at PF2. Trajectories of the<br />

fragment beam are shown in black and possible trajectories of the primary beam in red. As the primary<br />

beam loses in most cases more energy than the fragments the beam catchers are needed mainly on one<br />

side.<br />

2.4.11.1.5 Radiation damage<br />

Radiation damage in the carbon part of the beam catcher is caused by three mechanisms:<br />

• Elastic collisions of the primary beam, fragments or neutrons with the carbon atoms,<br />

• for high linear energy deposition the heating by the electronic energy loss can cause microscopic<br />

material melting and track formation. This happens in graphite above a threshold<br />

of about dE/dx = 7.3 ± 1.5 keV/nm [52] and will therefore occur mainly in the Bragg peak<br />

close to the end of the range,<br />

• spallation of the nuclides in the material and creation of other chemical elements.<br />

The number of displacements per atom (DPA) resulting from elastic collisions was estimated with<br />

the PHITS code. The result is shown in Figure 2.4.113 as a function of the depth in the beam<br />

catcher for a total number of ions of 10 20 uranium ions, corresponding to 116 days of operation per<br />

year over 10 years with the full intensity and energy. A strong peak appears towards the end of the<br />

range in carbon near the maximum of nuclear energy loss. But as the range and beam position will<br />

vary in different experiments the number of DPAs will stay on average below 1.<br />

The track formation imposes the strongest limit. First tests have shown that rather low rates of<br />

10 13 /cm 2 of uranium ions at Bragg peak energies already lead to significant material modifications.<br />

At room temperature almost each ion will create a track in this energy regime, leading to swelling<br />

of the material by about 1% in volume and hardening of the material [53]. On the other hand at<br />

higher energies like at the entrance to the catcher the probability of track formation is reduced by a<br />

factor of 1000. Almost no amorphisation was observed in HOPG graphite for irradiation at a<br />

temperature above 800K [54].<br />

121

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