Opening doors between high energy physics and industry
Superconducting magnets for High-Energy Physics are in a decisive period of technology development and will be facing unprecedented challenges in the ten coming years. A roadmap for the magnets in High Energy Physics is established, but this roadmap poses a range of technological barriers which will need to be overcome. Similarly, the industrial roadmap of superconductivity applications is also facing challenges, especially in the high-field applications (MRI and NMR) as well as in the in the energy sector (fusion, wind turbine).
In Japanese tradition, fusuma (襖) are panels which can slide from side to side and act as doors. The FuSuMaTech Initiative aims to open the doors between the technical worlds of high energy physics and industry.
The basic principle of the FuSuMaTech Initiative is the ascertainment that, among the R&D&I subjects identified on one hand under the magnets for High Energy Physics technology and the industrial magnet technology, there are a lot of common subjects. These subjects are very challenging and the most efficient way for Europe to keep its global leadership and to overcome the challenges is to support common activities gathering Industry and academic partners on these common subjects. The FuSuMaTech Working Group, established in January 2015 by CERN and CEA, has clearly pre-selected a set of common R&D&I subjects. As the R&D&I activities should not only rely on academic methods, the R&D&I subjects have been classified in two categories:
1. Generic R&D&I
2. Pilots and technology demonstrators
The FuSuMaTech Initiative is firmly placed under the umbrella of the large CERN development plans for HL-LHC and FCC. The two development plans for HL-LHC project and FCC study will deploy a lot of specific R&D&I programmes in the ten coming years and will result in the realisation of numerous prototypes and several sets of serial magnets to be installed in real accelerators, based on a frontier edge technology.
FuSuMaTech Phase 1
Europe has a recognised leadership in the domain of superconducting magnet technology and the FuSuMaTech Initiative is clearly placed in this industrial context. The European companies involved in the production of superconducting magnets are key players on a global scale. The FuSuMaTech Initiative is positioned at the crossroad of the HL-LHC roadmap and of the industrial roadmap with applications in for example MRI, NMR and transport of energy.
The FuSuMaTech Phase 1 is the first step of the FuSuMaTech Initiative. It will consist in preparing:
1. The administrative and legal conditions;
2. The detailed description of generic R&D&I actions and of the Technology demonstrators;
3. The funding scheme for the future actions.
In this way, the FuSuMaTech Initiative will solve a set of generic R&D&I questions that are common to these two worlds and will create the conditions for development in common of several technology demonstrators.
Looking ahead
The FuSuMaTech Initiative is placed on a long term time line and is a dedicated and large scale silo breaking programme. The FuSuMaTech Phase 1 will facilitate the conditions for the resolution of technical issues and the emergence of innovative magnet designs. Once the FuSuMaTech Phase 1 is completed after 18 months, the actors from Industry and Academia will be ready to start the real implementation of the R&D&I actions and technology demonstrators and the FuSuMatech European Cluster for Superconducting Magnet Technology will be born.