Gas Yield and Mechanical Property of Super Insulator (Polyimide and Polyester) after Gamma Ray Irradiation

Japanese intense spallation neutron source (JSNS) driven by 3 GeV protons with power of 1 MW is constructed under the joint project of Japan Atomic Energy Agency and High Energy Accelerator Research Organization. Supercritical hydrogen of around 20K with 2 MPa is selected as a neutron moderator material and cryogenic hydrogen transfer lines are constructed from the moderators to the refrigerator. Then, a super insulator (SI) is adopted to reduce heat load in the hydrogen transfer lines. We performed irradiation test of SI using 60Co gamma ray to evaluate the irradiation effect. Two kinds of super insulator (polyimide and polyester) coated both sides by aluminum with thickness of 5 x 10-8 m were irradiated. After gamma ray irradiation, tensile test and gas yield measurement of super insulator were performed. Polyester based SI became brittle at about 10 MGy, on the other hand, polyimide based SI did not loss ductility so much even 80 MGy. Polyester based SI generated gas yield higher than that of polyimide based SI about one order of magnitude. We developed the gas analysis method by using a Q-mass and a mass-flow, providing to identify the unknown gas (i.e. H2O) effectively compared to a gas chromatography method.