Hot isostatic pressing assisted diffusion bonding for application to the Super Proton Synchrotron internal beam dump at CERN

The new generation internal beam dump of the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN will have to dissipate approximately 270 kW of thermal power, deposited by the primary proton beam. For this purpose, it is essential that the cooling system features a very efficient heat evacuation. Diffusion bonding assisted by hot isostatic pressing (HIP) was identified as a promising method of joining the cooling circuits and the materials of the dumps core in order to maximize the heat transfer efficiency. This paper presents the investigation of HIP assisted diffusion bonding between two CuCr1Zr blanks enclosing SS 316L tubes and the realization of a real size prototype of one of the dump’s cooling plates, as well as the assessments of its cooling performance under the dump’s most critical operational scenarios. Energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, microstructural analyses, measurements of thermal conductivity, and mechanical strength were performed to characterize the HIP diffusion bonded interfaces (CuCr1Zr-CuCr1Zr and CuCr1Zr-SS 316L). A test bench allowed to assess the cooling performance of the real size prototype. At the bonded interface, the presence of typical diffusional phenomena was observed. Moreover, measured tensile strength and thermal conductivity were at least equivalent to the lowest ones of the materials assembled and comparable to its bulk properties, meaning that a good bonding quality was achieved. Finally, the real size prototype was successfully tested with an ad hoc thermal test bench and with the highest operational thermal power expected in the new generation SPS internal beam dump. These results demonstrated the possibility to use HIP as a manufacturing technique for the cooling plates of the new generation SPS internal beam dump, but they also open up the way for further investigations on its exploitability to improve the cooling performance of any future high intensity beam intercepting device or in general devices requiring very efficient heat evacuation systems.