SunPower partnership sparks new solar module
Representatives from SunPower Corp., a leading U.S. solar manufacturer and global competitor, recently visited the New Mexico Regional Test Center, co-located with Sandia’s Photovoltaic Systems Evaluation Laboratory, to inspect their company’s experimental PV system.
Father, son bond over record-smashing roadster
For the past eight years, Sandia manager Joel Wirth has been working after hours in his home garage with his crew chief — his father, Jack Wirth, a retired Sandia electrical engineer. Together, they’ve built one of the fastest 1927 Model T roadsters in the world.
A material benefit to society
Sandia senior scientist Tina Nenoff, a perennial inventor of advanced materials, has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Tina was bestowed the honor by her peers “for outstanding accomplishments in nanoporous materials and technology through research and group effort leadership, particularly in ion and gas separations for energy and environmental applications.”
New wind technology breathes life into turbine siting
Sandia researchers Chris Kelley and David Maniaci and former Sandian Brian R. Resor have developed a wind turbine blade design that would allow for the closer placement of turbines, thanks to a faster dissipating wake.
Power plants get watered down
Electricity production is one of the industries that uses the most water in the country each day. Sandia researchers are helping the largest power plant in the U.S. identify the most efficient and cost-effective strategies to reduce water use. They have developed a first-of-its-kind comprehensive system dynamics analysis that can show power plants which wet cooling systems can save them money.
Internships fuel research for Puerto Rico engineering students
The NNSA-sponsored Consortium for Integrating Energy Systems in Engineering and Science Education internship program connects engineering students from five Hispanic-serving institutions, including UPRM, with research at Sandia and the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown, West Virginia.
‘I do have a place’
Sherralyn Sneezer is one of four students who interned at Sandia this summer through the DOE Indian Energy Internship Program. As we observe Native American Heritage Month this November, the Lab News spoke with Sherry about her experience at Sandia and her plans for the future.
Fuel property put to the test at Sandia’s CRF
Researchers at Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility are working to understand the fundamentals of phi-sensitivity, a key fuel property that represents how the autoignition reactivity of the fuel varies with the fuel/air equivalence ratio. This will help increase the efficiency and facilitate the development of practical low-temperature gasoline combustion engines.
Engineering success through predicting failure
Around the world, materials scientists and engineers are trying different ways to predict fractures in ductile metals, but it’s not clear which approach is most accurate. To compare the different methods, Sandia researchers have presented three voluntary challenges to their colleagues: Given the same basic information about the shape, composition and loading of a metal part, could they predict how it would eventually fracture?
Lowering the bar for hydrogen-powered technology
The Hydrogen Materials Advanced Research Consortium, or HyMARC, a multilab collaboration co-led by Sandia, is developing two types of hydrogen storage materials to meet challenging energy density targets set forth by DOE. The newly expanded collaboration is using the most promising strategies to optimize the materials for future use in vehicles.