Objective
The full exploitation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the highest priority of the European Strategy for particle physics. Because of this accelerator Europe is in a leading global position on High Energy Physics research. To preserve that position, the LHC will need a major upgrade in the 2020s to increase its luminosity by a factor of five beyond its design value. The novel configuration, known as High Luminosity LHC, is based on the development of key innovative technologies representing exceptional technological challenges.
The LHC now has an urgent need for magnet technologies at the cutting edge of science which are currently not on the market and are not even being considered by commercial suppliers due to their novelty and low volume production demands. The requirements of the LHC are, among others, “long orbit corrector magnets” for the necessary adjustment of the particles orbit and “two-in-one quadrupoles magnets” in charge of providing the strong focusing of particle beams. To the companies that should produce these magnets, the commercial application potential for this technology is – at this time - too low.
The QUACO project draws together several research infrastructures with similar technical requirements in magnet development, which will allow the avoidance of unnecessary duplication of design effort and reduce overall cost through economies of scale using a joint procurement process. By pooling efforts on technological requirements and using their experience from prior procurements, the partners in QUACO will act as a single buyer group with sufficient momentum for potential suppliers to consider the phased development of the requested magnets. The pre-competitive procurement (PCP) instrument used in this project will thus take away the mismatch between the high-end R&D effort and the existing market for these instruments and allow large and small specialised companies to increase the speed of their own research and technology development.
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Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
PCP - Pre-Commercial ProcurementCoordinator
1211 Geneve 23
Switzerland
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Participants (3)
75015 Paris 15
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28040 Madrid
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05 400 Otwock
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