FAN

FAN (Fabrica de Aparatură Nucleară, the Nuclear Equipment Factory) at Măgurele, near Bucharest, made in series the instruments designed by the research institutes of the Măgurele physics platform, IFA and its successors [1].

History

IFA had microproduction workshops from the 1950s, which grew out of the Academy’s central workshops (absorbed by IFA in 1952) and had more than 100 employees by 1977 [1]. FAN was created in 1977, by the State Council decree that reorganised the Măgurele platform into the Central Institute of Physics, and grew to 1,500 employees; its nuclear electronics section (SPAEN) had about 300 people, more than 200 of them transferred from IFA’s research teams [1]. For the equipment of the Cernavodă nuclear power plant (from about 1982–1983) it introduced strict nuclear quality assurance, following every component through every stage of production [1]. In 1991 it was privatised, Nuclear&Vacuum S.A. taking its place; its nuclear electronics production ended, and of the factory only the buildings remain [1].

Products

FAN made 16 types of radiation probes and detectors, 4 types of low- and high-voltage power supplies, 21 types of dosimetry and radiation measuring instruments, 11 types of NIM and CAMAC modular instruments and 20 types of general-purpose, vacuum and measuring equipment, as well as subassemblies and one-off instruments for research centres such as Dubna, CERN and Karlsruhe [1]. It did not make semiconductor detectors, lacking the technologies for growing, doping and polishing the crystals [1].

Its products included the ST-614 and SI-614 NIM crates; the NIM 1141 preamplifier and the NIM 1112, NIM 1113, NIM 1115, NIM 1117, NIM 1183, NIM 1052, NIM 1092, NIM 1122, NIM 1043 spectrometry modules; the CIP104A and CIP104AS personal radiation alarms; the Numecint 88 counter, its longest-lived product, used in most Romanian nuclear units; the VTI 336-74 vacuum gauge, the CED-439 stopwatch and the TED-439 tachometer; the AMCT-500 and AM-4096 multichannel analysers; the ART-5 and ART-6 EPR spectrometers; and dosimetry equipment for Cernavodă such as the DIGAMAT [1].