ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Officials of Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology this week are establishing the Center for Energetic Materials and Energetic Devices (CEMED).
News media are invited to an MOU signing ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 18, 9:30 a.m., in the Wyndham Albuquerque Hotel ballroom, 2910 Yale Blvd. SE. Subject matter experts will be available at the MOU signing to answer questions.
Initial projects CEMED is pursuing include developing energetic devices to help fight wild fires for the forest service and experimental tests to determine blast pressure and validate simulation models of building demolitions.
While researchers in the technical security community often call them “energetic materials and devices,” the public calls them explosives and bombs. By any name, as the nation remains under the threat of terrorist attack, there is a growing urgency to develop advanced capabilities to identify, evaluate, test, and disarm such devices. At the same time, there has been a decline in recent years in research into the science of energetic materials, and a corresponding decrease in development of new energetic devices for both peaceful and military applications.
The three CEMED partners are establishing the Center to address the immediate terrorist threat as well as the longer-term the need to revitalize the nation’s energetic materials R&D activities.
Each CEMED partner brings unique capabilities to the table. Sandia for more than 50 years has had as one of its core missions the design and production of advanced energetic devices and subsystems. CEMED projects will offer Sandia and its Regional Alliance for Manufacturing Program (RAMP) partners a chanced to stretch their manufacturing capabilities on high consequence/low volume systems and assemblies. Los Alamos brings to the new partnership a long history of developing and characterizing new energetic materials under normal and extreme conditions using sophisticated experimental diagnostics and accurate materials and test fabrication facilities. New Mexico Tech is the only US university to offer degrees in explosives engineering; it conducts research and testing related to energetic materials and explosives for industry and government agencies.
Customers for CEMED will include a broad range of federal and state agencies with an interest in energetic materials and devices. Additionally, the Center will be a resource for U.S. companies that develop, use, and manufacture energetic materials and devices. They include companies from various industry sectors including transportation, mining, oil and gas, automotive, and munitions manufacturers.
Los Alamos contact: Jim Danneskiold, (505) 667-1640
New Mexico Tech contact: George Zamora, (505) 835-5617