Development of a production target for FRIB: thermo-mechanical studies

Abstract

One of the challenges for the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) is the development of a high power target capable of rare isotope production by projectile fragmentation and in-flight separation at primary beam powers of up to 400 kW and at beam energies of 200 MeV/u for uranium. A small beam spot is required to achieve a high resolution in fragment separation which implies high power densities in the target. For FRIB a multi-slice rotating solid carbon disk was selected as the technical baseline concept. This paper presents the results from a number of critical experimental studies on the thermo-mechanical behavior of such a target. These studies were accompanied by extensive simulations in support of the development of a single-slice target. As a final step, a multi-slice 50 kW target that is a prototype for the FRIB production target was designed, built, and mechanically tested prior to beam tests to be performed.