Vol. 54, Special Issue        February 2002

Labs Accomplishments 2002

Introduction: Labs President Paul Robinson's letter to all Sandians:

Each year we at Sandia National Laboratories take great pride in cataloguing significant accomplishments achieved during the past year by the men and women who make up this great laboratory. The past year, 2001, was extraordinary for the diversity and richness of the achievements and for the one day, September 11, that so deeply affected and changed our laboratory and our nation.

Sandia's staff have rapidly shifted gears to turn up the rate of progress in our national security work, suddenly rendered even more important by the instantaneous change in the free world's security situation that occurred that day. All across the Labs, individuals and teams have all made heroic efforts to extend our technology contributions to both better protect our troops and to help win the war against terrorism.

The deep patriotism that inspires all of our laboratory's work took on monumental importance in the days following the terrorist attacks, and we are today operating at an unprecedented intensity in increasing the rate of development and deployment of our unique technologies.

While the many hardware products we have delivered to the Afghanistan front give us special pride that we are fulfilling our highest goal "to become the Laboratory that the nation turns to first for technology solutions to the problems that threaten peace and freedom," I am delighted with the richness of the many accomplishments, large and small, that we report this year.

Sandia has achieved pioneering accomplishments in so many important areas of science and technology, from new software tools that revolutionize the design process, to software systems that vastly improve our financial management; and from creation of classified networks within Sandia to creation of the world's most powerful network that is now furthering the work of all of the NNSA labs. I invite you to judge for yourself: Have this year's accomplishments been the best ever in rendering exceptional service to our nation?

C. Paul Robinson, Labs President and Director

Introductory note from editor

Shortly after the beginning of each calendar year the Lab News sums up Sandia National Laboratories' principal achievements during the previous fiscal year. This issue of Labs Accomplishments continues that tradition.

All Sandia divisions -- from both the technical and administrative sides of the house -- were invited to identify some of their key accomplishments from the period of Oct. 1, 2000, through Sept. 30, 2001. Submissions selected by the VPs' offices are presented on the following pages.

In reading through the accomplishments, you'll notice some numbers in parentheses at the end of each entry. Those represent the Sandia center (or centers) in which most of the work on a particular accomplishment was done. Also, you'll note that many of the technical accomplishments include a key contact name and e-mail address.

The work is presented here by category. We've found over time that this organizational approach is helpful, but it is important to recognize that such categorization, particularly in a multiprogram, multidisciplinary laboratory such as Sandia, is to some extent arbitrary. Much of the work listed in the category "Nuclear Weapons," for example, could very appropriately have been listed under "Computing," "Engineering Science," or any one of a number of other categories. And the converse is certainly true. Indeed, much of the work done across all the Labs' technical divisions supports Sandia's fundamental mission-related nuclear weapons work.

Last modified: February 28, 2002

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