About CHARM

CHARM (CERN High energy AcceleRator Mixed field) is a new and unique testing facility that completes CERN's radiation testing installations. Located in the East Area just downstream of the PH Department's IRRAD facility, where high-flux radiation testing on smaller experimental equipment takes place, CHARM provides teams with a venue to test their equipment in radiation environments similar to those found in the accelerator chain.

First envisaged in 2007, the CHARM facility was then developed in the context of R2E project and it  fulfils a growing demand for a large-scale tailor-made radiation testing facility. Unlike commercial facilities, CHARM features a wide spectrum of radiation types and energies (called mixed-field radiation environments), the space to test large equipment and even the possibility to adjust the environment using mobile shielding. 

More precisely, it is used to qualify components and systems mainly for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerator equipment applications. The radiation field is generated through the interaction of a 24 GeV/c proton beam extracted from the Proton Synchrotron (PS) with a metallic target. The corresponding mixed-field environment resembles that present in the vicinity of a high-energy accelerator and can be adapted to the application conditions by selecting different test configurations. 

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