Thermal shock analysis of windows interacting with energetic, focused beam of the BNL muon target experiment

In this paper, issues associated with the interaction of a proton beam with windows designed for the muon targetry experiment E951 at BNL are explored. Specifically, a 24 GeV proton beam up to 16 TP per pulse and a pulse length of 100 ns is tightly focused (to 0.5 mm rms radius) on an experimental target. The need to maintain an enclosed environment around the target implies the use of beam windows that will survive the passage of the proton beam. The required beam parameters in such a setting will induce very high thermal, quasi-static and shock stresses in the window structure that exceed the strength of most common materials. In this effort, a detailed analysis of the thermal/shock response of beam windows is attempted through a transient thermal and stress wave propagation formulation that incorporates the energy deposition rates calculated the by hadron interaction code MARS. The thermal response of the window structure and the subsequent stress wave generation and propagation are computed using the finite element analysis procedures of the ANSYS code. This analysis attempts to address issues pertaining to an optimal combination of material, window thickness and pulse structure that will allow for a window to safely survive the extreme demands of the experiment.