Accelerator and Research reactor Infrastructures for Education and Learning

Project Information

ARIEL

Grant agreement ID: 847594

DOI

10.3030/847594

Project closed

EC signature date 23 May 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 29 February 2024

Funded under

• Euratom

Total cost

€ 1 998 670,00

EU contribution

€ 1 998 670,00

Coordinated by

HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM DRESDEN-ROSSENDORF EV
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ARIEL (Accelerator and Research reactor Infrastructures for Education and Learning)

Reporting period: 2022-09-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

For the continued improvement of the safety of current and future nuclear facilities, accurate and precise nuclear data are required for example in detailed nuclear models embedded in computer simulations. Producing these nuclear data is a complex and lengthy process, which relies on neutron facilities and on highly-trained nuclear physicists. As an entire generation of experienced nuclear specialists is retiring, a general challenge for nuclear energy is to make sure that a new generation of young physicists is properly trained to take over from the retiring one.
In order to foster the seamless transfer of knowledge to this younger generation, including in countries with less advanced nuclear programs, 26 partners from 15 European countries home to the most modern and state-of- the-art neutron beam facilities based on accelerators and research reactors have united, forming an exceptional training ground where interested early-stage researchers (both before and after their PhD) and technicians can work on the most challenging problems together with international experts.
Experimental work in international teams at these facilities will be the most effective training and competence building tool. The project will provide at least 3000 additional beam time hours for external users groups at the neutron facilities of the consortium. Up to 90 early stage researchers and technicians will be able to receive full mobility and logistical support to participate in these experiments at 23 different accelerator or reactor-based neutron facilities.
The training of early stage researchers in the field of nuclear physics and nuclear engineering will be complemented by up to 30 research stays of up to 12 weeks duration for extended work at the participating facilities. These activities, which also address senior scientists, technical and professional staff, will help foster the transfer of knowledge with the EURATOM project SANDA.
The scientific proposals for experiments and training of early-stage researchers will be selected by a Project Advisory Committee consisting of high-level experts, based on scientific excellence and relevance to improve nuclear safety and support of nuclear data needs.
In order to increase the visibility and attractiveness at the university level, four summer schools with about 80 participants in total shall be organized during the project, targeting a wide spectrum of students with physics and engineering backgrounds.
In the ARIEL project the transnational access to neutron beam facilities was supported in 32 experiments providing more than 3500 hours of beam time for new important nuclear data measurements and hands on training of early state researchers. The education and training activities were enabled by the organisation of 30 scientific visits (total duration of 261 weeks) to the partner institutes where young scientists worked with the nuclear data experts with state-of-the-art neutron beams in projects relevant to their theses work. The experiments and scientific visits provided essential scientific and financial support for 33 PhD theses of students from France, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Czech, Italy, Serbia, Switzerland, and Germany.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The completed experiments include the following achievements:
• The Medley setup was used to measure double differential cross sections for light ion production on chromium and iron at the new Neutrons for Science facility at GANIL, Caen by a collaboration of Uppsala University.
• The plasma delay time effect of the timing of PIPS detectors for the VERDI spectrometer was measured at the LOHENGRIN fission fragment spectrometer of ILL by a collaboration from JRC Geel, Uppsala, Bucharest, Edinburgh and Manchester.
• The inelastic neutron scattering on 238-U has been studied with the ν- ball 2 at the LICORNE facility by a collaboration from Surrey, Darmstadt, Strasbourg and Bucharest.
• Several novel neutron detection systems were studied and their response function determined at PTB Braunschweig, HISPANOS Seville, and the BR1 research reactor at SCK CEN Mol.
The completed education and training projects included important work on
• Preparation and building of the two arm fission spectrometer VERDI with double Energy and velocity measurement at JRC Geel
• Neutron-induced fission measurements of 243-Am at CERN n_TOF
To also introduce new students to the field of nuclear data four international schools were organized by ARIEL partners with educational experience:
• Nuclear data: the path from the detector to the reactor calculation, CIEMAT, Madrid (24 students) February 21- March 04 2022
• Hands-on school on the production, detection and use of neutron beams, University of Seville (24 students) September 21-30, 2022
• Hands-on school on nuclear data from Research Reactors, Centre for Energy Research & Institute of Nuclear Techniques, and Budapest University of Technology and Economics, in Budapest, Hungary (24 participants) September 25-29, 2023
• Lab course in Reactor Operation and Nuclear Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany, Research Reactor TRIGA, (10 participants) November 19-24, 2023
The ARIEL project started with a kick-off meeting in Brussels, September 2019. The progress of the project was presented and discussed in two progress meeting and scientific workshops, the first was organized as a joint online meeting together with the SANDA project in March 2022 and the second one, a year later in person at NPL, Teddington, UK.
The final meeting of the ARIEL project took place at IJCLab in Orsay, France, January 2024
From all completed experiments and education and training projects up to now 23 peer reviewed publications were published. The ARIEL project and supported research was presented on international conferences, e.g. the International Conference on Nuclear Data for Science and Technology July 21-29,2022 and the 10th edition of the Euratom research and training conferences on fission safety of reactor systems (FISA 2022). The completed experiments will continue to lead to new publications and nuclear data sets also after the end of the ARIEL project.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The basic objective of ARIEL is to provide young scientists, researchers and experts with access to high quality nuclear research and training facilities for nuclear data, nuclear applications and fundamental physics experiments. Highest priority will be given to disseminate the results as fast and as widely as possible towards the nuclear data community and to the public at large. In this way, the cooperation between participating experimental facilities that has been established in earlier EURATOM frameworks will be generalized to a wider range of applications.
The essence of the work performed within ARIEL is to train early stage researchers in the nuclear data field by improving the coordination between experimental facilities in Europe for better responding to the measurement needs addressed by the nuclear data users. Relevant data measured with support from the ARIEL project shall be submitted to the EXFOR database of the NEA databank as soon as possible and publications listed on the ARIEL website and the CAP.

Map of Europe showing the ARIEL partner facilities and logo