Speaker
Description
This talk will present the latest developments in analysis and operating experience of ISIS spallation targets. There are two main parts, corresponding to Target Station 1 (TS1) and Target Station 2 (TS2) targets:
The new-style TS1 Project target and reflector have now been operating since November 2022 [1]. Temperature and flow data has been recorded throughout. This data is a valuable resource for monitoring target status, identifying irradiation-induced material property changes, and validating FEA simulations. The status of ongoing condition monitoring efforts will be presented. This data offers the opportunity to measure radiation-induced changes in the thermal conductivity of tungsten in-situ on an operating spallation target.
TS2 targets consistently require replacement only ~1.5 years into their nominally 5-year design lifetime, due to increasing activation of the cooling water. The root causes of this issue have been a long-standing mystery. Recent PIE investigations have identified a crack in the target cladding [2]. Detailed FEA simulations incorporating radiation damage now predicts target lifetimes which are consistent with the observed failures. The design of a multi-plate TS2 target variant is now underway, which is intended to mitigate a number of these issues. The approach to setting simulation processes and design limits for the redesigned TS2 target will be discussed.
[1] D. Wilcox et al., “Simulated and measured performance of the ISIS TS-1 Project target”, Journal of Neutron Research, vol 26, 2024.
[2] S. Gallimore, abstract submitted to ICANS XXV.