September 22, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Shovels symbolically speared the ground today at the site of Sandia National Laboratories new $42.5 million Emergency Operations Center.The 25,000-square-foot complex located on Kirtland Air Force Base is expected to be operational by spring 2023. The c…
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High-speed alloy creation might revolutionize hydrogen’s future
September 20, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — A Sandia National Laboratories team of materials scientists and computer scientists, with some international collaborators, have spent more than a year creating 12 new alloys — and modeling hundreds more — that demonstrate how machine learning can help accelerate the future of hydrogen energy by making it...
Sandia 3D-imaging workflow has benefits for medicine, electric cars and nuclear deterrence
September 14, 2021, Media Advisory • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories researchers have created a method of processing 3D images for computer simulations that could have beneficial implications for several industries, including health care, manufacturing and electric vehicles. At Sandia, the method could prove vital in certifying the credibility of high-performance computer simulations used in...
Categories: Computing, Science / Technology / Engineering
Major upgrade to HOT Shot rocket program culminates in successful launch
September 13, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories announced that a major upgrade to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s HOT Shot sounding rocket program culminated in a successful launch on Saturday at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. HOT Shot, short for High Operational Tempo Shot, collects scientific data that benefits...
Categories: Nuclear Weapons, Science / Technology / Engineering
Redesigning radiation monitors at U.S. ports
September 9, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Every day at ports of entry, hundreds of thousands of vehicles and containers cross into the country. Since 9/11, all incoming vehicles and containers at land crossings, rail crossings, mail facilities and shipping terminals are scanned by Customs and Border Protection officers to detect potential threats, including...
Categories: Homeland security, Science / Technology / Engineering
What if the secret to your brain’s elusive computing power is its randomness?
September 7, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If you’ve ever asked a car mechanic how long a part will last until it breaks, odds are they shrugged their shoulders. They know how long parts last on average, and they can see when one is close to breaking. But knowing how many miles are left...
Categories: Computing
Look who’s turning 25
September 2, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is celebrating 25 years of research conducted at its Z Pulsed Power Facility — a gymnasium-sized accelerator commonly referred to as Z or the Z machine. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, only a limited number of former leaders of the pulsed power program at Sandia...
Sandia uncovers hidden factors that affect solar farms during severe weather
August 31, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories researchers combined large sets of real-world solar data and advanced machine learning to study the impacts of severe weather on U.S. solar farms, and sort out what factors affect energy generation. Their results were published earlier this month in the scientific journal Applied Energy....
Pathways to production
August 30, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Biologists at Sandia National Laboratories developed comprehensive software that will help scientists in a variety of industries create engineered chemicals more quickly and easily. Sandia is now looking to license the software for commercial use, researchers said. Sandia’s stand-alone software RetSynth uses a novel algorithm to sort...
Extending nuclear power accident code for advanced reactor designs
August 24, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Nuclear power is a significant source of steady carbon-neutral electricity, making the design and construction of new and next-generation nuclear reactors critical for achieving the U.S.’s green energy goals. A number of new nuclear reactor designs, such as small modular reactors and non-light water reactors, have been...
Categories: Computing, Energy / Environment / Water
Sandia brings best cybersecurity minds to bear in national policy talks
August 23, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Sandia hosted a series of virtual cybersecurity events, called Meetings of the Minds, to pull together the best thinking on how the nation should respond to changing threats. The first one was held Dec. 6, 2020, and the second on May 26. The first event brought together...
Categories: Cybersecurity
With redesigned ‘brains,’ W88 nuclear warhead reaches milestone
August 16, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories and its nuclear security enterprise partners recently completed the first production unit of a weapon assembly responsible for key operations of the W88 nuclear warhead. “The arming, fuzing and firing assembly is the brains of the warhead,” said Dolores Sanchez, senior manager of the...
Categories: Nuclear Weapons, Science / Technology / Engineering
Engineer at Sandia Labs turns error detection into ‘secret language’ for data security
August 9, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Research into software error detection has led one Sandia National Laboratories engineer to develop a method — it works like two friends who speak their own language — to enhance the protection of digital content like email and social media messaging. Celestino Corral is an electrical engineer...
Categories: Cybersecurity
Sandia joins 16 national labs on transgender-inclusive, name-change process for papers
July 28, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories joins 16 other Department of Energy national laboratories and many prominent publishers, journals and other organizations in scientific publishing in announcing the beginning of a partnership to support name-change requests from researchers on past published papers. This agreement will allow researchers who wish to...
Imaging tool under development exposes concealed detonators — and their charge
July 22, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Behold the neutron, the middle child of subatomic particles. At times overshadowed by its electrically charged siblings the proton and the electron, neutrons quietly play important roles in national security. They start nuclear reactions for weapons and power plants. They bombard materials for nuclear safety tests. And...
Sandia designs better batteries for grid-scale energy storage
July 21, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed a new class of molten sodium batteries for grid-scale energy storage. The new battery design was shared in a paper published today in the scientific journal Cell Reports Physical Science. Molten sodium batteries have been used for many years to...
Categories: Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering
New weapons testing capability produces richer data, saves time, cost
July 20, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — A team of Sandia National Laboratories engineers developed a new testing capability in support of its nuclear weapons mission. The team completed their first combined-environments test on a full-scale weapons system at the Sandia Superfuge/Centrifuge complex in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In a successful test, weapons engineers simulated...
Categories: Nuclear Weapons, Science / Technology / Engineering
The hidden culprit killing lithium-metal batteries from the inside
July 14, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — For decades, scientists have tried to make reliable lithium-metal batteries. These high-performance storage cells hold 50% more energy than their prolific, lithium-ion cousins, but higher failure rates and safety problems like fires and explosions have crippled commercialization efforts. Researchers have hypothesized why the devices fail, but direct...
Sandia-led center to advance understanding of new solar panel technology
July 8, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Department of Energy recently awarded $14 million to form a Sandia National Laboratories-led center to improve the understanding of perovskite-based photovoltaic technologies and determine the best tests to evaluate the new solar panels’ lifetimes. The efficiency of perovskite-based solar cells has reached 25%, approaching the levels...
Categories: Renewable energy
Setting gold and platinum standards where few have gone before
June 24, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Like two superheroes finally joining forces, Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine — generator of the world’s most powerful electrical pulses — and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility — the planet’s most energetic laser source — in a series of 10 experiments have detailed the responses...
Cleared for takeoff
June 15, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A 30-year program that made flying safer through continued innovations in airplane inspection, maintenance and airworthiness research has ended its tenure at Sandia National Laboratories. The Federal Aviation Administration Airworthiness Assurance Center, or AANC, operated by Sandia for the FAA, is moving to the National Institute of...
Using a mineral ‘sponge’ to catch uranium
June 9, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A team of researchers from Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley and Pacific Northwest national laboratories tested a “sponge-like” mineral that can “soak up” uranium at a former uranium mill near Rifle, Colorado. The researchers found that the mineral, calcium apatite, soaks up and binds uranium from the groundwater, reducing...
Sandia gives awards, mentoring to local young women
June 3, 2021 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — A three-decade tradition connecting young Bay Area and northern California high school students with accomplished scientists at Sandia National Laboratories was not stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic. This spring, more than 70 students, parents, mentors and educators virtually attended the 30th Sandia Women’s Connection Math & Science...
Categories: Community / Education
World’s smallest, best acoustic amplifier emerges from 50-year-old hypothesis
June 2, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have built the world’s smallest and best acoustic amplifier. And they did it using a concept that was all but abandoned for almost 50 years. According to a paper published May 13 in Nature Communications, the device is more than 10 times...
Largest aerospace society names Sandia researcher ‘Engineer of the Year’
June 1, 2021 • ALBUQUERQUE, NM — Humberto “Tito” Silva III, a Sandia National Laboratories researcher, has been named Engineer of the Year by the world’s largest aerospace technical society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Selected by a committee of his peers, Silva was cited for improving failure-rate predictions of aerospace flight...
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