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What is...
What is an SFI,
what is SIMLab,
what is CASA...
Cover:
PhD candidate Karoline Osnes,
test specimen in hand,
inside the NOK 6 million shock tube.
All photos this section:
Ole Morten Melgård.
Layout:
NTNU Grafisk Senter
SFI IS A FUNDING SCHEME
SFI, Centre for Research-based Innovation, is a funding scheme
administered by the Research Council of Norway (RCN).
The main objective for the SFIs is to increase the capability of
business to innovate by focusing on long-term research. The
idea is to forge close alliances between research-intensive
enterprises and prominent research groups.
The host institution for an SFI can be a university, a university
college, a research institute or an enterprise with a strong
research activity.
The partners (enterprises, public organisations and other
research institutions) must contribute to the centre in the
form of funding, facilities, competence and their own efforts
throughout the life cycle of the centre.
The life cycle is eight years. Each centre receives roughly 12
MNOK per year from RCN. The host institution and partners
must contribute with at least the same amount.
SIMLAB IS A RESEARCH GROUP
Structural Impact Laboratory, SIMLab, is a research group at
the Department of Structural Engineering, NTNU. From 2007 to
2014, SIMLab hosted an SFI with the same name, SFI SIMLab.
This double use of the name sometimes causes confusion, but
now you know:
SFI SIMLab is history; the SIMLab research group is alive and
kicking.
All the more comforting, since the group carries with it all the
expertise that brought SFI SIMLab to a world-leading position
in the design of crashworthy and protective structures.
CASA IS AN SFI
CASA, Centre for Advanced Structural Analysis, is the name of
the new SFI hosted by the SIMLab research group.
The vision of SFI CASA is to establish a world-leading centre
for multi-scale testing, modelling and simulation of materials
and structures for industrial applications.
In doing so, CASA will both go further down in scale to
nano level and wider in scope than SFI SIMLab did.
New materials such as glass are included.
The annual report you are reading right
now, is the first from SFI CASA. The
Centre was officially established
on 1 July 2015.