Scientific News

Agenda

First announcement of NEUDOS12

2012/05/04

The IRSN organises from 3rd to 7th june 2013 in Aix-en-Provence (France) the NEUDOS12 symposium (Neutron and Ion dosimetry) in cooperation with EURADOS (European Radiation Dosimetry Group) whose the Institute is an active member, and IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). The second announcement to call for papers will be released in september. The tackle issues concern instrumentation and dosimetry techniques, different sides of neutron and ion dosimetry in medicine, in research, in industry and in aeronautics, and also dosimetry between physics and biology in cell scale.

Website

To find out more about EURADOS

Publication

A new dissertation in IRSN's HDR collection

2012/04/24

IRSN's HDR (Authorization to Direct Research) collection has been enriched with a new dissertation paper, the work of Agnès François, entitled "Appréhender et gérer les lésions radiques digestives : importance de la réaction muqueuse et nouvelles orientations thérapeutiques".

It talks about studying the consequences of digestive system irradiation in radiotherapy treatments of tumors. It aims to adapt and to develop therapeutics prospects regarding digestive tract, taking into account secundary effects in their entirety, including outside of irradiation field (en dehors du champ d'irradiation (on the scale of an organ or organism).

Defended in September 2007, this HDR dissertation is now available on the site in PDF format from IRSN’s HDR collection, but it is also possible to order a paper copy.

To upload the PDF file (in French)

To order a copy of the book

The HDR collection

Physics/Chemistry

IRSN - partner of two Labex: CaPPA and Icome2

2012/04/03

The IRSN is a partner of two laboratories of excellence (Labex), the list of which was published on 14 February 2012 by the French government’s general commission for future investments: the laboratory of Chemical and Physical Properties of the Atmosphere (CaPPA) and the interdisciplinary centre on multi-scale materials for energy and environment (Icome2). IRSN participates in the CaPPA Labex in the combustion, chemical kinetics and reactivity laboratory (C3R), which is a joint laboratory for the Institute and the Université Lille 1. In terms of the Icome2 Labex, IRSN is involved in its physics and thermomechanics of materials laboratory (LPTM). The winners of the “Labex” calls for projects are given financial assistance in order to enhance their international visibility, attract renowned researchers and construct a high-quality research policy.

To find out more about C3R

To find out more about LPTM (ex-LEC)

To find out more about CaPPA

Press release of Research French Ministry

Prize

Miloud Chahlafi, winner of a 2011 EADS Foundation prize

2012/03/26

In January 2012, Miloud Chahlafi was awarded the 2011 prize for the best engineering sciences thesis by the EADS Foundation. Miloud Chahlafi completed his thesis entitled “Modelling of thermal radiation in the core of a degraded nuclear reactor in the presence of steam and water droplets” at LESAM (Laboratory for the Study and Simulation of Major Accidents) of IRSN, and which he defended in January 2011.
Every year, the EADS Foundation awards prizes for six theses that have contributed to significant advances in research, by exploring new avenues, by proposing new paradigms, or by establishing novel interfaces between disciplines.

To find out more about LESAM

To find out more about EADS prize ceremony

Human factor

Resoh: A research chair for studying sub-contracting relations

2012/03/23
A research and teaching chair devoted to the organisational and human aspects of sub-contracting and joint venture relations has been created at EMN (Nantes School of Mines). It aims to study such relations in the nuclear domain and more widely in other industrial sectors faced with risk management issues. In coherence with the recommendations of its Research Policy Committee, the Institute aims to involve its researchers in work developed with university and academic players. This new chair responds to a current and growing concern shared by several players involved in the nuclear industry, since it results from a partnership involving IRSN, Areva and the DCNS Group as joint funding bodies. Apart from the attention paid to this subject at the moment of complementary safety assessments of French facilities following Fukushima, it fits in with one of the major scientific themes of the new LRSHS (Human and Social Sciences Research Laboratory) created in January 2012 within IRSN. The holder of the chair is Benoit Journé, professor of management and researcher at IEMNA (Nantes-Atlantique Institute of Economy and Management) of the University of Nantes.

To find out more about SEFH

Press release of EMN

Experimental facility

An international neutron metrology comparison

2012/03/19

The CCRI-K11 comparison of the International Commission of Weights and Measures' Consultative Committee for Ionizing Radiation deals with verifying the accuracy of national references of countries around the world for the fluence at four neutron energies. It will take place from September 2011 to October 2012 in Cadarache, at the AMANDE facility. This facility is being used to qualify the behavior with energy of neutron sensitive devices, such as those used for radiation protection of workers. In this comparison, IRSN is playing the roles of pilot, host laboratory, and participant. Each National Metrology Institutes of the participating countries (Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), as well as a Joint Research Center from the European Community, determine independently the fluence and its uncertainty at AMANDE calibration point. IRSN will then list the deviation from the mean value of each of the participant' measurements that will define the national measures' degree of equivalence (their difference from the agreed reference value). The results will be published in late 2013 in the journal "Metrologia."

To find out more about AMANDE facility

Research programme

Launch of the Diadomi project

2012/02/07

The Diadomi project(1), which involves developing a diamond dosimeter to measure the dose absorbed by the patient during radiotherapy using beams of very small dimensions, began on 1 April 2011. Diadomi, coordinated by the CEA-LIST, brings together various partners: the IRSN, several hospital centres and an industrial partner. This three-year project is financed by the French Agence Nationale pour la Recherche (National Research Agency) following a successful medical technology bid.
Radiotherapy beams of very small dimensions allow irradiation to be carried out very precisely in a ballistic sense and very locally (over an area on the order of a square centimetre) thanks to convergent minibeams. This technique is used when a high-precision non-invasive treatment is necessary, or for anatomical areas that are difficult to access or highly sensitive to ionising radiation (brain, lungs, spinal cord, etc.); that is, for 2000 tumour treatments of the 200,000 performed annually. But there is currently no measurement protocol for the doses received by patients comparable to those existing in standard radiotherapy. The issue in development of the diamond detector is to increase the safety of treatments and the radiation protection of patients.
The dosimeter of the Diadomi project will have very small dimensions (active volume <1 mm3) and be highly sensitive due to the synthetic diamond used for the detector. Diamond, a very stable material, can in fact be used as an equivalent of human soft tissues with regard to ionising radiation, as it has a similar density. The dosimeter is to be developed by the CEA, which will rely in particular on dosimetric databases collected by the IRSN in facilities emitting minibeams. The Institute will test the dosimeter under conditions of clinical use in collaboration with the hospital partners.