EU FP7 ERINDA

ERINDA (European Research Infrastructure for Nuclear Data) is the successor project of the EFNUDAT. ERINDA was started on 2010-12-01, with a 3-year long duration, with 14 member institutes across the continent, lead by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). The ERINDA project aims for a coordination of European efforts to exploit up-to-date neutron beam technology for novel research on advanced concepts for nuclear fission reactors and the transmutation of radioactive waste. Such waste is already existing in appreciable quantity due to the year-long operation of existing nuclear reactors and it will eventually also be generated during the running of new reactor types – albeit they can be optimized to produce much less of it.

Research to the aim of finding techniques optimized for a strong reduction of nuclear waste can already now be performed at existing nuclear facilities from the consortium proposed in this proposal and the main objective is to provide adequate transnational access to these infrastructures. The consortium will also provide funding for scientific support of experiments by short term visits of scientist to the participating facilities and foster the communication and dissemination of the results by organizing scientific workshops.

The proposals are reviewed by a Programme Advisory Committee (PAC). Approved experiments will get the necessary beam time. The user groups can also be supported for their travel and the accommodation and subsistence costs during the time required for the experiment.

The official website of the project is at http://www.erinda.org.

EU FP7 CHARISMA

duration: 2009.10-2013.10

CHARISMA (Cultural Heritage Advanced Research Infrastructures: Synergy for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Conservation/Restoration) is an EU-funded integrating activity project carried out in the FP7 Capacities Specific Programme "Research Infrastructures". The project provides transnational access to most advanced scientific instrumentations and knowledge allowing scientists, conservators-restorers and curators to enhance their research at the field forefront. Specialists from arts and sciences design and build new instrumentations and methodologies, develope the most promising technological applications and sustainable solutions to improve diagnostics and monitoring.

The CHARISMA transnational access (TA) programs, offer European scientists a to carry out their experiments utilizing 3 different and complementary groups of facilities (ARCHLAB, MOLAB and FIXLAB) through a service embedded in a multidisciplinary environment involving material science and artwork conservation/restoration.

The Budapest Neutron Centre – with the leadership of Research Institute of Solid State Physics and Optics and in cooperation with the Institute of Isotopes, HAS and with the Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, HAS – participates in the FIXLAB program, as a Transnational Access provider. FIXLAB provides access to large and medium scale European installations, including the beamlines of one synchrotron radiation, one neutron source and two ion-beam analytical facilities.

NORMA

The combination of PGAI and NT (Prompt Gamma Activation Imaging and Neutron Tomography) was first applied within the ANCIENT CHARM collaboration. Our aim is to install a new, permanent setup with a prompt gamma spectrometer and a neutron tomograph, which would provide a unique opportunity to image the structure of a sample and to determine its composition in a spatial-dependent way. The facility called NORMA (Neutron Optics and Gamma Radiation Measurement for elemental Analysis) will be offered to european users through the EU FP7 user support program. The construction of the facility was financially supported by the Baross Gábor Initiative – Central Hungarian Region - Improvement of the research and development infrastructure (REG_KM_INFRA_09) (15.2 MFt, approx. 56000 Euro). The setup will become operational at the end of 2011.

NAP VENEUS

OMFB-00184/2006 Visegrad Cooperation for Development and Application of Neutron Spectroscopy Techniques in Multidisciplinary Research (2005-2011)

Summary:
Materials' properties can be effectively explored and modified by using neutron beams. This multidisciplinary research is being concentrated nowadays at high intensity neutron source centres. The current project has 3 main objectives:

a) strengthen the regional neutron research collaboration in Central Europe, essentially by improving and development of equipment and access services at the Budapest Neutron Centre (BNC);
b) establish formal research and instrument development co-operation with Institute Laue-Langevin (ILL) at Grenoble, providing in this way access for the Hungarian R&D communities to the world leading neutron facilities;
c) perform high level research with special emphases on bio- and nanotechnology related materials, engineering systems with industrial relevance as well as for exploring objects of cultural heritage and ancient technologies.

The project will be performed by a consortium of 4 Hungarian research institutes in co-operation with the ILL – as international centre, and 8 industrial subcontractors. The instrument development programme will contribute to the construction of 3 unique instruments at BNC and one at ILL. Research based on these spectrometers will promote technology transfer towards industry, improve the number and quality of scientific publications, and strengthen the competitiveness for further national and EU grant applications. SME partners involved in instrument development expect considerable incomes due sales on the rapidly growing World market of neutron devices.

EU FP6 EFNUDAT

EFNUDAT (European Facilities for Nuclear Data) Integrated Infrastructure Initiative project, funded by the EURATOM (2006-2010).

The main objective of EFNUDAT is to promote the coherent use and integration of infrastructure related services via networking, transnational access to the participating facilities for nuclear data measurements and joint research activities. EFNUDAT aims at providing a convenient platform to integrate all scientific efforts needed for high-quality nuclear data measurements in support of:
  • waste transmutation studies and
  • design studies for Gen-IV systems that include an objective of producing less waste.
The EFNUDAT consortium groups 10 partners, equipped with nuclear data research infrastructures. The proposal unifies facility management, research community and stakeholders. The aim of EFNUDAT is to integrate all infrastructure-related aspects of nuclear data measurements and to provide access for external user to the participating facilities.

Particular emphasis will be given to the following objectives:
  • initiate networks leading to a stronger partnership in infrastructure management and exploitation
  • promote access and coherent use of all participating infrastructures to meet the scientific and industrial nuclear data requests
  • merge the complementary nuclear data measurement capabilities and expertise

Transnational Access to the EFNUDAT facilities

The unique combination of nuclear research facilities within the EFNUDAT consortium offers interesting measurement capabilities to endorse the neutron data requirements in the field of waste transmutation and innovative nuclear energy systems.

Within the framework of its Transnational Access Activities the EFNUDAT consortium offers a total of 4015 supplementary data-taking hours to new external users. The proposals are peer-reviewed by a Programme Advisory Committee (PAC).

Approved experiments will get the necessary beam time. The user groups can also be supported for their travel and the accommodation and subsistence costs during the time required for the experiment.
The official website of the project is at http://www.efnudat.eu.
Information about our role in the project.  http://www.efnudat.eu/docs/iki.pdf


The Institute hosted one of the collaboration workshops. The local website of the event is available at http://www.iki.kfki.hu/efnudat/ website.

ANCIENT CHARM

The acronym means: Analysis By Neutron Resonant Capture Imaging And Other Emerging Neutron Techniques: New Cultural Heritage And Archaeological Research Methods.

ANCIENT CHARM is an ADVENTURE project funded by the EU FP6 STREP NEST initiative to develop 3D imaging of elemental and phase composition of objects selected as a result of a broad scope archaeological research. The project began in 2006 and was successfully completed in 2009. 

Summary:
A large variety of chemical, physical and microstructural techniques are employed to characterize objects of cultural significance. Most of these methods are invasive and probes like X-rays and charged particles have limited penetration power in matter. Neutrons, on the other hand, can penetrate thick layers without substantial scattering or absorption depending on their energy. While the potential of neutron-based techniques is large, their development is recent in most cases. Especially, no attempt has been made to use the unique resonance absorption properties of epithermal neutrons for quantitative 3D imaging.

Many elements have neutron absorption resonances in the epithermal energy range. Neutron absorption is followed by the prompt emission of a gamma-ray cascade, and both the gamma emission and the neutron transmission can be measured. Spatially resolved information can in principle be obtained by a combination of tight neutron beam collimation, multiple positioning of the sample, and simultaneous measurement of neutron resonances with different strengths and therefore able to effectively probe depth.

Developing the Neutron Resonant Capture Imaging combined with Neutron Resonance Transmission (NRCI/NRT) as a non-invasive technique for 3D tomographic imaging and its use in cultural heritage research is the ultimate aim of the ANCIENT CHARM project.

The idea of developing an imaging technique based on epithermal neutron absorption is totally new and presents a number of scientific and technical challenges which are best addressed by the joint development of three 3D imaging methods:
The three new imaging methods will provide a new, comprehensive neutron-based imaging approach, which will be applied here for the 3D imaging of elemental and phase composition of objects selected as a result of a broad scope archaeological research.


The official website of the project is at http://ancient-charm.neutron-eu.net/ach/


Bilateral international co-operations

  • Hungarian and Polish Academy (Nuclear analytical methods in archaeology and art)
  • MÖB-DAAD (Archaeometrical analysis of Neolithic potteries and comparison to potential sources of raw materials in their immediate environment)
  • Hungarian-Croatian Collaboration (2008-2009, title: Archaeometry research of lithic raw materials for early neolithic prehistoric communities with the help of PGAA, with special regard to radiolarites and obsidian)

Co-ordinated research projects at IAEA, Nucl. Sciences and Appl., Vienna, Austria

National projects

GVOP detector reparation

 This project has been finished successfully in 2005. Summary Report