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CERN Chooses ILS PowerStar LED Array to Illuminate Proton Pulse Experiment

PowerStar LED arrays function perfectly despite exposure to extreme ionizing radiation

LED specialist Intelligent LED Solutions has announced that scientists at CERN chose their PowerStar LED arrays to illuminate a vacuum tank used for an experiment that impacted high intensity and energy proton pulses onto high-density materials such as iridium, tungsten, molybdenum and tantalum. 

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The PowerStar LED arrays are a compact, powerful LED light source built on aluminium substrates for optimal thermal management.

Despite an ionizing radiation dose of approximately 500 Gray that the LEDs were subjected to, the PowerStar LED's continued to function. The HRMT27 experiment, also known as “RodTarg” used the HiRadMat facility at CERN, which is able to provide 440 GeV/c proton beams coming from the Super Proton Synchrotron. 

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The PowerStar series of LED arrays, from Intelligent LED Solutions, feature 4 Oslon SSL Square ThinGan LEDs. Utilising Osram’s latest power chip technology, they remain cool at drive currents of up to 1000mA and offer a low thermal resistance of 7 K/W that ensures cool running and high efficiency.

 "We are very pleased with the feedback that we have had regarding this project," said Adrian Amor, Director at ILS. "The PowerStar arrays are an impressive technology and this application further demonstrates their suitability for demanding industrial and scientific projects. We are always happy to advise on LED type, power supply and heatsink issues for extreme projects such as this."

The motivation of the experiment comes from the existing uncertainties concerning the material structural response of the CERN antiproton production target core due to the extreme conditions reached in its iridium core during operation. These conditions are given by a sudden raise of temperature above 2000 ºC and compressive-to-tensile stress waves several times above the strength of the material in every single proton pulse impact.

The experiment had two main objectives:

1) Cross check and validation of the numerical hydrocodes employed for the calculations of the material response of the antiproton target core. This objective is carried out by measuring online significant amounts of information of each of the rods’ response when impacted by the proton beam, such as temperature, vibration displacement and velocity on their surface. In addition, the rods were subjected to a stepwise increase of intensity in order to record significant amounts of information at different regimes.

2) Reduce uncertainties in targets’ response and assess the antiproton target future material selection by exposing different candidate high-Z materials to similar conditions as reached during operation.

Furthermore, the experiment strove to find limits of the material of interest and to identify mechanisms of failure.

In the experiment a total of 13 rods of the materials of interest were placed inside the vacuum tank, supported by a vertical linear mobile sample holder structure capable of putting each of the rods in axis with the incoming proton beam.

The experiment relied on extensive online instrumentation placed inside the tank, consisting of an interferometer, two laser doppler vibrometers (LDV), a pyrometer (all of these using passive optical heads pointing to the rods surface) and thermocouples attached to the rod surfaces. In addition, two cameras (one radiation hard and one convectional high definition) were placed outside the tank recording the rods and sample holder structure through a radiation resistant window with the purpose to monitor remotely the experiment from a control room. Lighting inside the tank was achieved by using 4 PowerStar LED arrays attached to the windows.

Buy ILS 4 PowerStar:
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/led-circular-arrays/7734889/?sra=pstk

Buy ILS 4 PowerStar HeatSink:
http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/heatsinks/7805900/?sra=pmpn

About Intelligent LED Solutions
ILS is a division of Intelligent Group Solutions Ltd (IGS) a well established and respected industry leading display and opto-electronics solutions provider. Much of IGS’ business comes from providing semi-custom or custom products both in component and sub-assembly form.

ILS/IGS is a privately owned company and the owners are fully involved in the running of the business. All the senior staff have been involved with the opto-electronics industry for at least 15 years and are dedicated to ensuring that ILS is an innovative and highly successful operation. www.i-led.co.uk

Contact:
Adrian Amor, Director, Intelligent Group Solutions Ltd.
Tel:  +44 (0) 1635 294600
E-mail: info@i-led.co.uk

ILS is a division of Intelligent Group Solutions Ltd, a well-established industry leading display and opto-electronics solutions provider. ILS offers high level technical skill, professionalism and commercial understanding to companies requiring market leading optoelectronics solutions. ILS is a franchised stocking distributor and agent for amsOSRAM, OSRAM Digital Systems, Inventronics, LEDiL, Stanley, TSLC and Showin.
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