Cooking composites in the sun
Sandia’s solar tower is helping to assess how extreme temperature changes affect materials. The tests for the Air Force take advantage of the ability of Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility to simulate a very rapid increase in temperature followed by an equally rapid decrease.
Smarter, safer bridges with Sandia sensors
Sandia and UK-based Structural Monitoring Systems PLC have been working together for 15 years to create transportation systems that can send a signal when they're damaged. They've outfitted a U.S. bridge with a network of sensors that will alert maintenance engineers when they detect a crack large enough to require repair.
Sandia computational researcher wins DOE Early Career Research Program award
Sandia researcher Eric C. Cyr has received a 2018 Early Career Research Program award of $500,000 every year for five years to improve deep neural networks so they more efficiently combine experimental results with the most complex computer models.
Generating electrical power from waste heat
Directly converting electrical power to heat is easy, but the opposite, converting heat into electrical power, hasn't been so easy — until now. Sandia researchers have developed a tiny silicon-based device that can harness what was previously called waste heat and turn it into DC power.
Sandia light mixer makes 11 colors at once
Sandia scientists have developed a new light-mixing metamaterial that can be used in many applications, from creating a multi-color laser pointer to discovering hidden archeological sites in dense forests to detecting signs of extraterrestrial life in the air to increasing communications speed and capacity via fiber-optic networks.
Robot rivals rally to rope in rewards at rodeo
Last week, Sandia hosted the 12th annual Western National Robot Rodeo, a week-long, 11-event competition where eight civilian and military bomb squads from around the region solved challenging, simulated scenarios.
Tafoya named industrial engineering fellow
For her dedication to optimizing business processes and systems, Joan Tafoya recently was named a fellow of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, which recognized her work solving complex technical problems and instituting lean practices — passions that drew her to Sandia last fall after a 27-year career at Intel.
DOE to deploy Arm-based supercomputer prototype at Sandia
Arm microprocessors have been used in numerous applications from vehicle computers to cell phones, but until recently, have not been practical for use in high-performance computing. Astra — one of the first supercomputers to use Arm processors in a large-scale high-performance computing platform — is expected to be deployed at Sandia later this summer.
Raising the heat to lower the cost of solar energy
Sandia will receive $10.5 million from DOE to research and design a cheaper and more efficient solar energy system. The work focuses on refining a specific type of utility-scale solar energy technology, called concentrating solar power, which is appealing because it can supply renewable energy — even when the sun is not shining — without using batteries for storage.
Riding bacterium to the bank
What does jet fuel have in common with pantyhose and plastic soda bottles? They’re all products currently derived from petroleum. Sandia scientists have demonstrated a new technology based on bioengineered bacteria that could make it economically feasible to produce all three from renewable plant sources.