Post-Irradiation Properties of Candidate Materials for High-Power Targets

The desire of the high-energy-physics community for more intense secondary particle beams motivates the development of multi-megawatt, pulsed proton sources. The targets needed to produce these secondary particle beams must be sufficiently robust to withstand the intense pressure waves arising from the high peak-energy deposition which an intense pulsed beam will deliver. In addition, the materials used for the targets must continue to perform in a severe radiation environment. The effect of the beam-induced pressure waves can be mitigated by use of target materials with high-yield strength and/or low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) [1, 2, 3]. We report here first results of an expanded study of the effects of irradiation on several additional candidate materials with high strength (AlBeMet, beryllium, Ti-V6-Al4) or low CTE (a carbon-carbon composite, a new Toyota†gum†metal alloy [4], Super-Invar).