HSE-OHS-DR : Safety Design & Research

Future Beam Facilities
& Air Quality

Occupational health & safety services and expert advice for next-generation
scientific infrastructure.

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Team Leader: Andre Henriques

Our Mission

Our Domains

Meet the Team

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OUR MISSION

Advancing Safety for Tomorrow’s Discoveries

The Future Beam Facilities and Air Quality (FBA) team, part of HSE-OHS Safety Design & Research, provides occupational health & safety services and expert advice to the CERN community in the domains of developing safety concepts for future beam facilities and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ).

We deliver safety concepts, risk assessments, and advanced simulation-based studies for CERN’s next-generation facilities – the Future Circular Collider (FCC) and the Einstein Telescope (ET) – while ensuring healthy indoor environments across CERN sites through our Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) programme. We also lead the CAiMIRA project, a collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) to assess the risk of airborne disease transmission in different indoor environments.

Our vision is to achieve excellence in supporting CERN and addressing its unique challenges. We are committed to enhancing safety standards and fostering a culture of continuous improvement in safety. As a team, we value:

Teamwork

Supportive, tackling challenges together, functioning as a think hub

Critical thinking

Constructive questioning; science evolves, so should we

Excellence

Expert support, justified technical choices, up-to-date with the state of knowledge

Innovation

Seeking to optimise, using state-of-the-art tools and methods

Driven by innovation and excellence, we ensure a robust safety framework for the people and infrastructure enabling tomorrow’s scientific discoveries.

Our Domains

FUTURE CIRCULAR COLLIDER

Safety Concept for the FCC

The FCC is CERN’s highest-priority future project – a 91 km circular collider that will succeed the LHC. The FBA team leads the Safety WP and develops the overarching safety concept for the FCC, covering underground and surface infrastructures.

Definition of safety requirements for underground facilities and surface sites
Advanced CFD simulations of helium releases (Oxygen Deficiency Hazard) and fire scenarios
Safety-related studies on human behavior, human–robot interaction, and ergonomics in collaboration with universities
Evacuation modelling using agent-based and discrete-event simulation
Safety input to the FCC integration process, including collaboration with engineering groups
Coordination with the FCC Project Office and HSE Management Board on safety deliverables

EINSTEIN TELESCOPE

Safety Concepts for the ET

The Einstein Telescope is a next-generation gravitational wave observatory. CERN contributes to the project through a collaboration agreement with the ET Organisation (ETO), providing specialist expertise in underground facility safety.

Development of a holistic safety concept for the ET underground infrastructure
Hazard identification (HAZID) and risk assessment across all underground facilities
Fire safety analyses, including fire risk assessment and material performance requirements
Mechanical safety studies, including vacuum implosion analysis using CFD
Expert advisory support to ETO on safety requirements and design guidance
Supporting the ET Pilot Sector in matters of safety

ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

The FBA team monitors and assesses indoor air quality across CERN facilities to ensure healthy and safe environments for our personnel. Our work spans through design studies, measurement campaigns, data analysis, and the development of modern digital tools.

Provide technical and safety requirements for the design and retrofit of ventilation and filtration systems.
Conduct on-site workplace air quality assessments, measuring different indoor pollutants, analysing the results and proposing solutions.
Investigate incidents related to air quality, perform root cause analyses, and recommend corrective actions.
Lead complex Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) studies for high-risk and/or high-complexity projects.
Perform ventilation / filtration rate calculations and airflow modelling.
Develop IAQ guidelines, procedures, best practices and other engineering solutions for the Organisation.
Act as Safety correspondent and become the single point of contact in matters of safety, for some CERN-specific projects.
Design and development of an IoT data pipeline for real-time sensor data collection and visualisation
IAQ database and web application for assessment management, data exploration, and reporting

CERN – WHO COLLABORATION

CAiMIRA – CERN Airborne Model for Indoor Risk Assessment

Visit the CAiMIRA website

CAiMIRA is an open-source tool, originally developed at CERN and now collaborating with the World Health Organization (WHO), for assessing the risk of airborne transmission of respiratory diseases in indoor settings.

KT supported project
Models the risk of secondary transmission of a respiratory pathogen in an enclosed space.
Studies the effect of pharmaceutical (vaccination) and non-pharmaceutical interventions (ventilation, air filtration, masks, social distancing)
Multi-pathogen transmission risk modelling (including COVID-19, Influenza, RSV)
Scenario flexibillity: Allows independent features for all occupants, and deterministic or probabilistic exposure
AI-powered systematic review screening tools
Open to the scientific community – open-source policy under development