Project Organisation (Workpackages)
The European Horizon 2020 project BEAmline for Tomography at SESAME (BEATS) has the objective to design, procure, construct and commission a beamline for hard X-ray full-field tomography at the SESAME synchrotron in Jordan.
The European grant is worth 6 million euros and will span a four-year period from beginning 2019 to end 2022.
BEATS involves leading research facilities in the Middle East (SESAME and the Cyprus Institute), and European synchrotron radiation facilities ALBA-CELLS (Spain), DESY (Germany), the ESRF (France), Elettra (Italy), INFN (Italy), PSI (Switzerland), and SOLARIS (Poland).
The initiative is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project is coordinated by the ESRF.
A beamline for tomography at SESAME is aimed at serving user communities in the region, in particular the cultural heritage and archaeology communities. It is an obvious advantage for these communities to be able to access a state-of-the-art beamline close to the source of samples or remains to be analysed.
Another very important application is the detailed characterisation of the microstructure of geological samples. The region served by SESAME has large stakes in both oil and gas recovery, but also suffers a lack of water. Through detailed knowledge of the fine-structure of the pores in the geological structure, more knowledge can be obtained on how to recover oil, gas and water from underground reservoirs.
The layout of the SESAME tomography beamline will be inspired by the tomography beamline at the Swiss Light Source (SLS) and will be fully optimised for absorption and phase contrast imaging. Particular attention will be given to preserving the coherence of the X-rays.
The baseline X-ray source is a bending magnet. BEATS will look into the possibility of developing a better performing source, for example either a super-bend or a 3-pole wiggler to significantly increase the photon flux at higher energies, offering further opportunities for scientific applications.
BEATS is a consortium of nine partners. Together, they bring a large pool of expertise and experience that will be put to the service of SESAME through the seven activity work packages: X-ray source, beamline infrastructure, procurement, construction, assembly and commissioning, sustainability, data analysis and management.
The BEATS project was launched on 1st January 2019 and will run for four years, with first users on the beamline expected in December 2022.
The Steering Committee is the ultimate decision-making body of the BEATS consortium.
It is responsible for project policy. It has an oversight of the project’s targets and time schedules, project planning and control, dissemination and exploitation activities, and financial planning. It reviews reported progress, approves corrective actions where necessary and validates proposed plans for future activities.
The Steering Committee is composed of one representative from each beneficiary plus individually invited observers. The BEATS coordinator acts as the secretary to the Steering Committee.
Members:
Mirjam van Daalen, Paul Scherrer Institute (CH), Chairwoman
Kirsi Lorentz, The Cyprus Institute (CY), Deputy Chairwoman
Constantina Alexandrou, The Cyprus Institute (CY)
Giorgio Paolucci, ELETTRA (IT)
Wolfgang Drube, DESY (DE)
Salvador Ferrer, ALBA-CELLS (ES)
Andrea Ghigo, INFN (IT)
Michael Krisch, ESRF (FR)
Andrea Lausi, SESAME (JO)
Adriana Wawrzyniak, SOLARIS (PL)