Russian government will support UrFU's hi-tech production projects

16:32, January 10, 2013

UrFU projects in spheres of IT and nuclear instrumentation got funding from the federal government

Two projects of Ural Federal University won the open contest for high technology manufacturing organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. These are: "Development of an automated control, tracking, modelling, analysis and optimization system for the whole metallurgical production cycle, based on creating and integrating mathematical models of business-processes across the enterprise" and "Research and development of LaBr3(Ce) crystal-based ionizing radiation spectrometers".  Each of the projects is getting 300-mln-rbls as a subsidy from the federal government for the next three years.

A special working group to prepare the projects was formed at UrFU.  Their work was taken under personal control by Rector Viktor Koksharov, while the day-to-day supervision was exercised by the new Vice-Rector for Research Vladimir Kruzhaev.  And UrFU team managed to achieve excellent results: only 6 out of 71 Russian universities won two projects at a time.

The project of creating an automated control system is implemented by UrFU Institute of Radioelectronics and IT together with "I-Techo" company. The project director is Prof. Valery Labunets from the Department of Basic Theory of Radio Engineering. For the first time in Russia a research team will be developing their own hi-tech IT-product for production management.

"The Institute has already got vast experience in developing such systems. Implementation of this project will enable us to gain more experience in developing complex production management systems meeting the highest international standards and for a number of features even exceeding them. Now we are planning to form a team of efficient and ambitious young researchers and lecturers who would be able to do even more large-scale projects", Prof. Labunets pointed out.

Another winning project is devoted to the development of a LaBr3(Ce) crystal-based ionizing radiation spectrometer. There are two types of spectrometers used for measuring ionizing radiation.  One of them is a highly accurate semiconductor spectrometer, but such devices are very expensive and can hardly be manufactured in Russia. Another type is a much cheaper scintillation spectrometer providing crude data.

The LaBr3(Ce) crystal-based spectrometer can be considered a compromise between the semiconductor and scintillation spectrometers.  In many cases such spectrometers can be used instead of semiconductor ones but they are much more resistant to temperatures, humidity and pressure.  Besides, they are more durable!  This new kind of spectrometer is to be used in process and radiation control systems at nuclear power stations and for monitoring the environment.

The work was supervised by Prof., D.Sc. Oleg Ignatiev, the head of the research laboratory, Experimental Physics Deparment, Institute of Physics and Technology. "This support will allow us to grow and expand the range of research topics involving more young scientists in nuclear instrumentation development", he explained.

Oleg Ignatiev put great effort in bringing to life this project, for instance, in searching for investors.  The research and development enterprise "Radiation control. Tools and methods" responded to the proposal.  The project work was launched in 2007 when the technology of growing crystals LaBr3(Ce) started to be applied.  Partnership with one of the leading suppliers of equipment, software and methodology for nuclear power stations has proved to be mutually beneficial: the enterprise is developing the technology of growing and industrial manufacturing crystals, while the university is developing the instruments for working with these crystals.