Development of a thermal-vacuum chamber for simulation of space environments with proton beam irradiation

• Published in: Journal of the Korean Physical Society Vol. 83; no. 6; pp. 416 - 425
• Main Authors: Kim, Han-Sung, Kwon, Hyeok-Jung, Lee, Seung-Hyun, Kim, Dong-Hwan, Yun, Sang-Pil
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Korean Physical Society 01.09.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aerospace environments; High vacuum; Mathematical and Computational Physics; Original Paper - Fluids; Particle and Nuclear Physics; Performance tests; Perturbation; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Plasma and Phenomenology; Proton beams; Radiation; Radiation effects; Simulation; Single Event Effects; Space exploration; Temperature distribution; Theoretical; Thermal cycling; Vacuum chambers; Thermal-vacuum chamber; Space component; SEE; Space radiation; KOMAC
• ISSN: 0374-4884; 1976-8524
• DOI: 10.1007/s40042-023-00912-9

As the interest on the space exploration is increasing, the needs for the facility to test the space components are continuously growing. We have developed a thermal-vacuum chamber to simulate the space environment based on the 100-MeV proton linac, which is capable of providing quantified beam irradiation on the space components, to induce SEE (single event effect) and make it possible to study the radiation effects on the space components quantitatively. With the developed thermal-vacuum chamber, specimen temperature can be varied from − 55 to + 125 ℃ solely through radiation heat transfer under high vacuum condition, along with proton beam irradiation up to 100 MeV. We designed and fabricated the chamber to irradiate the test components efficiently in the vacuum environment, taking into consideration of minimizing the perturbation on the beam, temperature distribution on the specimen and the mechanical integrity of the beam window as well. The fabricated thermal-vacuum chamber underwent performance test including thermal cycling with dummy specimen. Details on the development of the thermal-vacuum chamber for space simulation along with initial test results will be given in this paper.