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Forschungszentrum Jülich

Interdisciplinary research centre in Germany

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Forschungszentrum Jülich's headquarters are located between the cities of Aachen, Cologne, and Düsseldorf on the outskirts of the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Jülich. FZJ has 15 branch offices in Germany and abroad, including eight sites at European and international neutron and synchrotron radiation sources, two joint institutes with the University of Münster, Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), and three offices of Project Management Jülich (PtJ) in the cities of Bonn, Rostock, and Berlin. Jülich cooperates closely with RWTH Aachen University within the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA).

The institution was established on 11 December 1956 by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia as a registered association before it was renamed Nuclear Research Centre Jülich in 1967. In 1990, its name was changed to "Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH".

History

On 11 December 1956, the State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia decided to establish an "atomic research centre". The Society for the Promotion of Nuclear Physics Research (GFKF) was thus established as a registered association (e. V.). Its founder is considered to be State Secretary Leo Brandt (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Transport of the Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia). Several locations were considered but the decision was made in favour of the Stetternich forest in what was then the district of Jülich. The Society for the Promotion of Nuclear Physics Research (GFKF) was renamed Nuclear Research Centre Jülich (or KFA for short, which was taken from the German). Seven years later, it was converted into a limited liability company (GmbH), and in 1990, it was named Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH. The partners of Forschungszentrum Jülich are the Federal Republic of Germany (90%) and the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (10%).

MERLIN and DIDO

In 1958, the foundation stone was laid for the research reactors MERLIN (FRJ-1) and DIDO (FRJ-2), and they went into operation in 1962. The FRJ-1 research reactor was decommissioned in 1985 and completely dismantled between 2000 and 2008. The FRJ-2 research reactor was a DIDO-class reactor and it was used for neutron scattering experiments. It was operated by the Central Research Reactors Division (ZFR). FRJ-2 was the strongest neutron source in Germany until the research neutron source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz in Garching (FRM II) was put in operation. FRJ-2 was primarily used to conduct scattering and spectroscopic experiments on condensed matter. It was in operation from 14 November 1962 until 2 May 2006. In 2006, the Jülich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) was founded, reflecting Forschungszentrum Jülich's role as a national competence centre for neutron scattering. Six of the most important instruments were moved from FRJ-2 to FRM II; new instruments were also assembled there.

AVR

In 1956, an interest group was formed to prepare the construction of the AVR reactor. In 1959, it became the "Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor GmbH" (AVR GmbH) – a consortium of 15 local electricity suppliers headed by the Düsseldorf municipal utilities (Stadtwerke Düsseldorf) as the owner and operator (other partners included the municipal utilities in Aachen, Bonn, Bremen, Hagen, Hanover, Munich, and Wuppertal). The aim was to demonstrate the feasibility and operability of a graphite-moderated, gas-cooled high-temperature reactor to produce electricity. BBC and Krupp were responsible for construction of the AVR reactor, which began in August 1961 and was completed in 1966, after the consortium had received the design contract in April 1957 and the construction contract in February 1959. The cost of construction was in the region of DM 100 million.

In 1967, the AVR reactor was put into operation and began feeding electricity into the national power grid. On 31 December 1988, the AVR reactor was shut down; during its operation, it had proven the feasibility of the pebble bed reactor. Karl Strauss said in 2016 that "the facility had generally been operated without any problems". The mean availability was 60.4%. AVR received scientific support and operating subsidies from the Nuclear Research Centre Jülich (KFA) but was formally independent. From the mid-1980s, the then KFA reduced its commitment to the further development of the gas-cooled high-temperature reactor.

The AVR pebble bed reactor is still being dismantled today (see its dismantling and disposal). The severe contamination of the reactor core with radioactive graphite dust particles proved particularly difficult. This contamination was caused by the coating of the fuel pellets made of silicon carbide and porous carbon, which leaked under the high temperatures in the reactor core and released radioactive fission products. The BBC and Krupp construction consortium had miscalculated the temperatures in the reactor core as 300 K lower. FZJ solved the problem by filling the reactor core with foamed lightweight concrete, which binds the dust particles and stabilizes the reactor core. Safety researcher Rainer Moormann, who raised public attention to the graphite dust contamination, was awarded the Whistleblower Prize in 2011. Immediately after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, FZJ and AVR GmbH established an independent expert group to investigate the history of the AVR reactor, and in particular, to issue an official statement on Moormann's public disclosures.

Fields of research since the 1960s

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In addition to research on nuclear physics and nuclear energy, work began soon after FZJ's foundation on new, non-nuclear topics and projects, such as environmental research and soil research for agriculture. One of the first institutes to be founded was the Institute of Biology (Botany department) on 1 May 1961. In autumn 1961, the Central Institute for Applied Mathematics (ZAM) was established, combining a mathematical institute with a computer centre, which was unusual at that time. Research into what is now known as neuroscience began in 1964 when the Institute of Nuclear Medicine was founded and radiotracers were developed and used in imaging techniques. Another research priority was understanding solid states as a basis for the investigation and modification of material properties, for example for new materials in energy research. In 1970, the Institute of Solid State Research was established.

In the decades that followed, Jülich expanded its range of research fields to include life sciences, energy and environmental research, materials science, and information technologies. The Institute of Biotechnology was founded in 1977. In 1981, the large-scale facility TEXTOR was put into operation. It was Jülich's fusion experiment for exploring nuclear fusion reactor technology in the field of plasma-wall interaction. The facility was decommissioned at the end of 2013. In 1993, the COSY particle accelerator went into operation. In 1984, the CRAY X-MP supercomputer, one of the fastest computers in the world, was inaugurated at ZAM. ZAM played a pivotal role in founding the first national supercomputing centre (HLRZ) in 1987. In 2007, ZAM became the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), which today operates the powerful supercomputer JUWELS and makes it available to European researchers.

The new scientific orientation led to a name change and "Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH" (FZJ) came into being in 1990. Forschungszentrum Jülich is a founding member of the then Association of National Research Centres (AGF, 1970), which became the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres in 1995. In 2004, the Ernst Ruska-Centre for Electron Microscopy was founded. It is equipped with transmission electron microscopes. Soil and environmental research were interlinked with climate research. In 2001, the SAPHIR atmospheric simulation chamber was inaugurated, followed by the PhyTec experimental facility for plants in 2014. Collaboration with RWTH Aachen University was consolidated in 2007 by establishing the Jülich Aachen Research Alliance (JARA). In 2011, Forschungszentrum Jülich, in partnership with the universities in Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, and Düsseldorf, founded the Bioeconomy Science Center (BioSc) as a scientific centre of excellence for sustainable bioeconomy. FZJ also works closely with the universities in Bonn, Cologne, and Aachen within the Geoverbund ABC/J. In 2011, the ESS Competence Centre was established at Forschungszentrum Jülich. It coordinates the German contributions to the European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund, Sweden.

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