Boosting innovation with neutrons

Date: 
Thu, 03/30/2017
industry

 

SINE2020’s Industry Consultancy programme demonstrates the potential of neutron technology to European companies. As part of its drive to encourage industrial users to exploit the unique properties of neutron beams for R&D, SINE2020 can arrange for test measurements and feasibility studies to be performed free of charge at European neutron research facilities.

Until now, SINE2020 launched two calls for applications. In these calls, 17 companies expressed their interest in the programme by applying online via the project's website . The applicants came from different industrial sectors, mostly from engineering and metallurgy, followed by the energy sector (Figure 1). Other requests came from the field of electronics, chemistry and biotechnology. Eleven companies were granted free feasibility studies which have now been finished or will be in the coming months.

 

Fig. 1: Classification of the 17 applications received per industrial sectors     Fig. 2: Classification of techniques utilized to solve problems
              addressed by companies.
The most popular techniques to address the requests (s. Figure 2) were residual stress and imaging/tomography. Other problems needed to be addressed by small angle neutron scattering (SANS) or elemental trace analysis.