Enhancing Materials Irradiations through Thoughtful Shielding (EMITS)

The Dalton Cumbrian Facility (DCF) is the only facility in the UK current able to deliver high energy and high current ion beams onto samples. It is a user facility, enabling both academic and industrial scientists from around the world, but primarily from the UK, to expose various samples to high levels of radiation damage. Since components of a nuclear reactor will be exposed to high levels of radiation damage during their lifetime, understanding their response to high levels of radiation is important for the safe management of the nuclear industry. Components of a reactor are expected to have an operational lifetime of several decades but we need to develop and assess them on much shorter timescales.

Currently the safe operation of ions beams at DCF is limited by the prompt radiation they create - this radiation disappears very quickly after the ion beams are turned off but the instantaneous radiation levels, if operating DCF's largest ion accelerator at maximum power, is at a level which is not safe for the operators. In this project, new shielding will be put in place, ensuring safe operation at even the highest beam powers we can achieve. With this order of magnitude increase in beam power, we should be able to safely expose test components to reactor-lifetime levels of radiation in about 1 day, thereby supporting the prompt development and testing of components for the UK nuclear industry.

The capability of the ion beams at DCF will also be enhanced by the addition of portable shielding to be used on a flexible case-by-case basis to allow a wide range of new research relevant to both safety of established nuclear plant and for development of new plant, for many decades to come.