Measurement of Dynamic Strain on a Mercury Target Vessel During 800-MeV Proton Thermal Shock Tests

Abstract

A mercury target vessel, designed to simulate some aspects of the eventual target design for the proposed Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) to be built in Oak Ridge by the Department of Energy, was used in a test at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) to study the strain induced from thermal shock of bombarding protons. In the SNS, intense thermal shock loads are expected to cause an enormous rate of temperature rise ({approximately}10{sup 7} K/s), with resulting pressure waves in the mercury that may lead to large stresses on the thin walls of the mercury target. To guide the mercury target design and to benchmark the computer design codes, transient strain was measured using fiber optic Fabry-Perot sensors. Twenty strain sensors were attached in various axial and transverse orientations to a cylindrical stainless steel target vessel containing mercury. The vessel was 10 cm in diameter, about 15 cm long, and with a 5-cm radius hemispherical shell welded to the forward end. The test was done at the LANSCE Weapons Neutron Research (WNR) beam facility on 30-31 January 1999. The sensors were attached with gauge lengths of about two centimeters, and were located in pairs in most areas, for redundancy and facilitation of data analysis. The 800-MeV proton deposition of 0.5--2.3 x 10{sup 13} over a full-width at half maximum beam size of {approximately}25 mm, produced axial strains peaking at a few microstrains, with transverse (hoop) strains more than an order of magnitude higher. We describe the experiments, including the sensors and measurement configuration, and discuss the strain data analysis.