The objective of the CERTA Network is to provide a consolidated framework for the preservation of the existing and eventually new integral system experimental data bases required for the development and assessment of computer codes used in the safety analysis of water cooled reactors under normal operation and accident conditions.
In order to fulfil the objective of preservation of experimental databases and the maintenance of supporting information/documentation a new database program called STRESA has been developed at JRC Ispra. This database is established on a user friendly, web-based distributed informatic platform based on modern information technologies and it provides provision of a demonstration packages for remote data access and retrieval.
Following European major integral test facility experimental data are now included in the CERTA network of database: PKL (Germany), BETHSY (France), SPES (Italy), LOBI (EC), UPTF (Germany), PIPER-ONE (Italy), PACTEL (Finland), PMK (Hungary), FIX-II (Sweden), PANDA (Switzerland). For each of the organizations and related facility, a dedicated web site has been prepared which contains the data and the documentation of at least two experiments per facility. A portal has also been built from which it is possible to navigate in all the other web sites with one single ID and password. The internet address for this portal is:
http://asa2.jrc.it/certa. Since it was not possible to install STRESA database on a home server which is a dedicated PC at PSI, due to the general security measures for computer systems (general protective firewall provided at PSI) and also PSI internet web site is based on UNIX., ISP-42 PANDA database and related facility documentation have been installed successfully on the JRC server and is available on CERTA Network database. If there is a continuation project in relation to CERTA in the 6th Framework projects, a solution should be sought to provide the database in a home server at PSI. The installation of the network was performed by means of dedicated training courses for a period of one week for each participant. During these courses, the STRESA web masters have learnt how to set-up the database and how to convert their existing data.
The CERTA network has been successfully established. It was possible to demonstrate tha a distributed network is possible and that very useful information can be stored and retrieved in a very user-friendly mode.
It was also demonstrated that the CERTA-Network, as it is, can be easily operated and it also guarantees that the data owner can track their users and control any operation on the database. The greatest benefits of such a network arrangement is in the possibility to perform search by topic or by word over the whole network and this is particularly important when many servers are connected together to form a complex knowledge base system.
All the partners in CERTA-Network agreed to entrust Prof. F. D'Auria (University of Pisa -I) and N. Aksan (PSI-CH) with the task to look for eventual opportunities offered by the EC Framework Programme 6 and pursue the extension of the activity.
