The inspiration and concept for DENIM stemmed from the lack of an effective forum for inter-facility discussions of engineering and project related issues related to the design and operation neutron instrumentation designs.
Following discussions between engineers at ISIS in the UK and ILL in France the idea was formulated to establish an annual workshop/conference open to members of the engineering community of neutron scattering facilities across the globe with the focuse on the design and engineering of neutron scattering instruments.
The first Design and Engineering of Neutron Instruments Meeting (DENIM) was held in 2012 at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory’s ISIS facility with 45 participants. The following year the event was held at the SNS, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA and attracted 76 engineers and a number of local engineering suppliers. The third edition, organized at the FRM2 by MLZ, together with Technische Universität München, Forschungszentrum Jülich and Forschungszentrum Geesthacht attendance growing again culminating in a total of 150 attendees at last year's event organized by Budapest Neutron Centre (BNC) in Budapest, Hungary.
Over it's 4 year existence the annual DENIM event has established itself as probalby the most significant engineering workshop in the field of neutron scattering instruments.
Following the successful application to host the conference in 2016 by the ESS the next edition will be hosted by the facility and held in Lund, Sweden.
Participants of DENIM 2015 at BNC, photo courtesy of Wigner Institute
