Development of radiation resistant PEEK insulation cable

Mio, Keigo; Ogiwara, Norio; Furukori, Hisayoshi*; Arai, Hideyuki*; Nishizawa, Daiji*; Nishidono, Toshiro*; Hikichi, Yusuke

Material characterization and development has been carried out for cable insulation suitable for use in the J-PARC 3-GeV RCS radiation environment. In spite of its high cost, PEEK (polyether-ether-ketone) has emerged as the leading candidate satisfying requirements of being non-halogen based, highly incombustible and with radiation resistant at least 10 MGy, along with the usual mechanical characteristics such as good elongation at break, which are needed in a cable insulation. -ray irradiation tests have been done in order to study radiation resistance of PEEK cable. Further, mechanical, electrical and fire retardant characteristics of a complete cable such as would be used at the J-PARC RCS were investigated. As a result, PEEK cables were shown to be not degraded by radiation up to at least 10 MGy, and thus could be expected to operate stably under the 3-GeV RCS radiation environment.