Technological Demands of the Sirius Project

The Sirius project has as one of its objectives to stimulate the development of the Brazilian industry, through its demand for raw materials, equipment and services. Partnerships with Brazilian companies are established in a variety of formats, ranging from cooperation agreements, with joint development between the laboratory and the company, to the supply of technological items of high quality and precision.

In 2016, more than 200 small, medium and large Brazilian companies were involved in some partnership under the Sirius project – not to mention those involved in the demands for civil works, which are managed by the construction company Racional Engenharia.

Among them, about 40 companies have been working on technological developments especially for the Sirius Project.

One highlight is the partnership with the company Termomecânica São Paulo S.A.. The company has developed the process for manufacturing storage ring vacuum chambers made of a copper and silver alloy as well as hollow copper wires for electromagnets that allow circulation of water for cooling.

WEG Indústrias S.A., one of the largest electric motor manufacturers in the world, is manufacturing more than a thousand electromagnets for Sirius, as designed by the LNLS technical team.

There are also examples of partnerships with smaller companies: with FCA Brasil, for the manufacture of booster vacuum chambers; with EXA-M Instrumentação do Nordeste Ltda., for the development and manufacture of the baking devices of the vacuum chambers of the storage ring; with Engecer Ltda., for the manufacture of ceramic chambers consisting of hexagonal boron nitride and aluminum nitride; with BrPhotonics for the development of X-ray detectors with high capacity data transfer.

More recently, new development agreements have been established, such as the design of the experimental hutches for radiological protection by Biotec, the developments of the concrete and metallic girders for support of the magnets by Leonardi and JPHE companies, the supply of levelers for the magnets by Toyomatic, the production of synchronization boards by Produza and the high complexity printed circuit boards by Lauquen.

Sirius Partnerships

To increase the participation of national companies in the Sirius project, other systematic actions were taken. Based on the risk analysis of 73 products to be developed, and considering – in addition to the areas of operation of the Brazilian industry – the market for these products and the technological development required, they were chosen 29 technological challenges to be developed in partnership with Brazilian industry.

It began then to search for partnerships through discussions with funding agencies and industry associations. In June 2013, LNLS promoted Partnerships Workshop Sirius, in order to present the business challenges of the Sirius project and partner selection model. Of the 50 participating companies, 21 sent letters of intent, demonstrating the interest in developing some of the challenges presented during the event.

1st FAPESP/Finep Call

Finally, negotiations with the Funding Authority for Studies and Projects (Finep) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) culminated, in September 2014, in the opening of the first public call for selection of companies based in São Paulo to develop 20 technological demands of the Sirius project with resources of R$ 40 million.

These funds were made available under the PIPE / PAPPE economic grant program, so that each proposal could request up to R$ 1.5 million for the chosen development.

Eight companies were selected to develop 13 research projects to solve the challenges posed in the call. Whereas the success rates of programs such as PIPE are between 20% and 40%, the model built between the LNLS/CNPEM and FAPESP/Finep was successful in regards to the percentage of approved projects. The final approval of the companies and signature of the contracts took place during the second half of 2015.

In June, 2016, FAPESP, Finep and LNLS held the 1st Workshop for Project monitoring the projects approved for the 1st Call of Proposals. It was attended by Representatives of the Funding Agencies and the Laboratory, as well as representatives of the companies, which were invited to present the project for which they are responsible, the implementation stage, the main difficulties and the results obtained in the first months of the contract. There were 12 presentations with the follow-up and interaction with the Funding Agencies managers and with LNLS researchers.

2nd FAPESP/Finep Call

In August 2015, a second public call for proposals was launched for the development of 13 new technological challenges, with resources of R$ 20 million under the same program.

The deadline for submission of proposals by companies ended in February 2016, and were analyzed by FAPESP. In December, 11 new projects for the development of products, processes and services for Sirius were chosen to receive support.