May 1, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A kick in the teeth got Delano Romero thinking about mouth guards. An Albuquerque martial artist, Romero was sparring in Brazilian jiu-jitsu when his mouth took a hit. His over-the-counter mouth guard didn’t do its job, and his teeth fractured. Romero decided to develop a better mouth guard,...
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ER doc, Sandia engineer join forces on better trauma shears
April 23, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An Albuquerque physician teamed with a Sandia National Laboratories engineer to improve the doctor’s trauma shears design so emergency personnel can get to the injuries they need to treat more quickly. “Sometimes seconds count. This product will make a difference for the medical community,” said Mark Reece...
Sandia National Laboratories’ work on neutron generation: Going from tubes to chips
April 17, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — It was a figurative whack on the head that started Sandia National Laboratories distinguished technical staff member Juan Elizondo-Decanini thinking outside the box — which in his case was a cylinder. He developed a new configuration for neutron generators by turning from conventional cylindrical tubes to the...
Categories: Science / Technology / Engineering
Topics: technology
Miniature Sandia sensors may advance climate studies
April 10, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An air sampler the size of an ear plug is expected to cheaply and easily collect atmospheric samples to improve computer climate models. “We now have an inexpensive tool for collecting pristine vapor samples in the field,” said Sandia National Laboratories researcher Ron Manginell, lead author of...
U.S. Navy experience shows climate alterations, invited speaker at Sandia Labs says
March 29, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Because its presence is worldwide, the U.S. Navy sees the effects of climate change directly, an invited lecturer in Sandia National Laboratories’ ongoing Climate Change and National Security Speaker Series recently told his scientific audience in Albuquerque and, by teleconference, Livermore, Calif. “The findings are independent of climate...
Sandia’s Ion Beam Laboratory looks at advanced materials for reactors
March 26, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Sandia National Laboratories is using its Ion Beam Laboratory (IBL) to study how to rapidly evaluate the tougher advanced materials needed to build the next generation of nuclear reactors and extend the lives of current reactors. Reactor operators need advanced cladding materials, which are the alloys that create...
Nuclear fusion simulation shows high-gain energy output
March 20, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — High-gain nuclear fusion could be achieved in a preheated cylindrical container immersed in strong magnetic fields, according to a series of computer simulations performed at Sandia National Laboratories. The simulations show the release of output energy that was, remarkably, many times greater than the energy fed into...
Sandia experiments may force revision of astrophysical models of the universe
March 15, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The idea of compressing water is foreign to our daily experience. Nevertheless, an accurate estimate of water’s shrinking volume under the huge gravitational pressures of large planets is essential to astrophysicists trying to model the evolution of the universe. They need to assume how much space is...
Experimental smart outlet brings flexibility, resiliency to grid architecture
February 27, 2012 • Sandia National Laboratories has developed an experimental “smart outlet” that autonomously measures, monitors and controls electrical loads with no connection to a centralized computer or system. The goal of the smart outlet and similar innovations is to make the power grid more distributed and intelligent, capable of reconfiguring itself as...
Asian American Engineer of the Year honors three Sandians
February 27, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Three Sandia National Laboratories scientists are among 19 people from across the United States receiving 2012 Asian American Engineer of the Year awards. The AAEOY program and awards ceremony will be held in Albuquerque on March 2-3 at the Marriott Uptown. “It is a great honor to...
Sandia seeks better neural control of prosthetics for amputees
February 18, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Sandia National Laboratories researchers, using off-the-shelf equipment in a chemistry lab, have been working on ways to improve amputees’ control over prosthetics with direct help from their own nervous systems. Organic materials chemist Shawn Dirk, robotics engineer Steve Buerger and others are creating biocompatible interface scaffolds. The...
Sandia National Laboratories researchers find energy storage “solutions” in MetILs
February 17, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Sandia researchers have developed a new family of liquid salt electrolytes, known as MetILs, that could lead to batteries able to cost-effectively store three times more energy than today’s batteries. The research, published in Dalton Transactions, might lead to devices that can help economically and reliably incorporate...
Sandia tool determines value of solar photovoltaic power systems
January 31, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Consistent appraisals of homes and businesses outfitted with photovoltaic (PV) installations are a real challenge for the nation’s real estate industry, but a new tool developed by Sandia National Laboratories and Solar Power Electric™ and licensed by Sandia addresses that issue. Sandia scientists, in partnership with Jamie...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Operations / Budget, Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering, Technology transfer / Economic Impact
Sandia’s self-guided bullet prototype can hit target a mile away
January 30, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M — Take two Sandia National Laboratories engineers who are hunters, get them talking about the sport and it shouldn’t be surprising when the conversation leads to a patented design for a self-guided bullet that could help war fighters. (Click here for a video showing the prototype’s flight.) Sandia...
Sandia chemists find new material to remove radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel
January 23, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Research by a team of Sandia chemists could impact worldwide efforts to produce clean, safe nuclear energy and reduce radioactive waste. The Sandia researchers have used metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to capture and remove volatile radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel. “This is one of the first attempts to...
Developing power-over-fiber communications cable: When total isolation is a good thing
January 18, 2012 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sometimes total electrical isolation is a good thing — and that’s the idea behind a power-over-fiber (PoF) communications cable being developed by engineers at Sandia National Laboratories. It’s common to isolate communications between systems or devices by using fiber optic cables, said Steve Sanderson of Sandia’s mobility...
Categories: Science / Technology / Engineering
Sandia researchers, UK partners publish groundbreaking work on Criegee intermediates in Science magazine
January 13, 2012 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — In a breakthrough paper (full text/PDF) published in this week’s issue of Science magazine, researchers from Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility, the University of Manchester and Bristol University report direct measurements of reactions of a gas-phase Criegee intermediate using photoionization mass spectrometry. (Click here to see a short video...
Sandia’s Annular Core Research Reactor conducts 10,000th operation
October 31, 2011 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – With a muffled “pop,” a flash of blue light and a few ripples through 14,000 gallons of deionized water, Sandia National Laboratories’ Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) recently conducted its 10,000th operation. “The ACRR has been a real workhorse for Sandia, and labs leadership and the nation...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Materials Science, Nonproliferation, Science / Technology / Engineering
Sandia designs mobile facility to measure greenhouse gases
September 8, 2011 • LIVERMORE, Calif. — Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have designed and built a mobile research facility to trace and identify the origin of greenhouse gases. In addition to pinpointing the chemicals’ location, the unique mobile facility can help researchers learn whether the gases are biogenic (coming from plant sources) or...
Big machines: two radiation generators mark major milestones in helping protect the U.S.
September 7, 2011 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two remarkable pulsed-power machines used to test the nation’s defenses against atomic weapons have surpassed milestones at Sandia National Laboratories: 4,000 firings, called ‘shots,’ on the Saturn accelerator and 9,000 shots on the HERMES III accelerator. Saturn — originally projected to last 5 to 10 years — began...
Tribal Energy Program at Sandia empowers Native American students while powering tribal lands
August 15, 2011 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Most Americans take electric power for granted, but for thousands of people living on tribal lands, getting to the grid can be a challenge. A lack of infrastructure, transmission capabilities and policies impede the availability of electricity within the reservations and to outlying tribal areas. A program...
Categories: Community / Education, Energy / Environment / Water, Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering, Technology transfer / Economic Impact
Sandia hosts 2011 Wind Turbine Reliability Workshop
August 1, 2011 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Sandia National Laboratories will hold its biennial Wind Turbine Reliability Workshop, Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 2-3, 8 a.m. -5 p.m. at the Marriott Pyramid North in Albuquerque. Speakers include Steve Chalk, deputy assistant secretary for renewable energy in Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy...
Categories: Energy / Environment / Water, Science / Technology / Engineering, Technology transfer / Economic Impact
Sandia donating historically significant robots to Smithsonian Institution
July 18, 2011 • [caption id="" align="alignright" width="313" caption="Miniature autonomous robotic vehicles were developed in the mid-1990s and led to the creation of superminiature robots in 2001, which were selected by Time magazine as the invention of the year in robotics in 2001. (Phot…
Categories: Operations / Budget, Science / Technology / Engineering
Topics: robotics
Sandia Labs Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory undergoing $4.2 million stimulus fund renovation
July 12, 2011 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Sandia’s world-renowned Battery Abuse Testing Laboratory is undergoing a major renovation so Sandia researchers can test larger batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The nation’s leading facility for battery testing was built in 1991, and has conducted thousands of critical scientific studies to evaluate the...
Sandia National Laboratories partners with TUV Rheinland PTL, LLC to advance nation’s photovoltaic industry
June 23, 2011 • ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Testing techniques from Sandia National Laboratories are helping accelerate the growth of the nation’s photovoltaic solar power industry through a partnership with TUV Rheinland PTL, LLC, a private testing and certification company in Tucson, Arizona. “The unique, multiplatform test capabilities developed at Sandia Labs are providing a...
Categories: Awards, Renewable energy, Science / Technology / Engineering, Technology transfer / Economic Impact
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