From Serpong to Garching: Exchange and Education

IAEA training Rifai Muslih learns all about the STRESS-SPEC applications and evaluation of the data. © FRM II

Rifai Muslih learns all about the STRESS-SPEC applications and evaluation of the data. © FRM II

The MLZ does not only provide excellent scientific results and user service but also extraordinary education and training for young people, world-class instruments and their upgrades. The MLZ also offers from time to time support for the technical program of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which brings together research institutions and scientists from its different member states to collaborate on research projects or training purposes. Another important support is to fund travel expenses for scientists, as many countries only have a limited budget for research activities or travels to conferences and training.

This is also the case for our guest; M. Refai Muslih from National Nuclear Energy Agency-BATAN of Indonesia. Refai is instrument scientists for the DN1 (Residual Stress diffractometer) instrument at the GA Siwabessy Multi Purpose Reactor located in Serpong. This Multi Purpose Reactor was designed and developed by the General Atomic company and is run with LEU at a half of full capacity of 30 MW for efficiency purposes. This capacity is e.g. adequate for research activities, isotope production for the field of industry up to health, tests as well as material testing, and science trials/experiments. “99 % of the beam tubes available are for scientific purposes”, Rifai qualifies the official range of tasks. The 15 MW is enough for the total 7 instruments which 4 instruments connected to the reactor using 2 neutron guides. DN1 is quite similar to STRESS-SPEC and Refai’s special interest is focused to the NICOS software, as he wants to adapt this software to control and develop his own neutron scattering instrument in BATAN.

During his stay here in Garching he learns about set-up, measurement procedures (including data treatment) and devices used on a residual stress diffractometer as well as how to set up a personal safety system around the experimental area. He is also actively participating in the current user program of the instrument and gains thus hands-on experience of problems encountered in performing such experiments.
In addition he will also be involved in design and development of components for the instrument control system NICOS for materials science experiments. This includes training him how to protect the data taken during the experiment and operate instrument control software via a computer network. During the whole program he is being supervised by Dr. Michael Hofmann and Jens Krüger.

Refai Muslih stayed here for one month, but another colleague of him, Tri Hardi Priyanto, will follow him shortly afterwards. He is the responsible instrument scientists for DN2 (Texture and single crystal diffractometer). At the BATAN facility these are two different instruments, in Garching this is the same one. His main interest will be in specialized sample environment as well as data analysis procedures and software for texture measurements.