Five seconds at F/16, with a broken camera
In May 1998, Sandia photojournalist Randy Montoya captured a photo that has since become legend. The stunning image, nicknamed "Arcs and Sparks," captures the Z machine just as it fires — a mere 100 nanoseconds of roughly 200 trillion watts of x-ray energy, many times all the electrical power generated in the world at any given moment.
Sandia’s robotic work cell conducts high-throughput testing ‘in an instant’
With 3D printing, you can make almost anything in a matter of hours. However, making sure 3D-printed parts work reliably takes weeks or even months. To speed up the process, Sandia scientists have designed and built a six-sided work cell around a commercial robot that conducts high-throughput testing to quickly determine how well those parts perform.
Catching Dreams
Sandia volunteers traveled to Gallup, New Mexico in April to bring hands-on science and engineering activities — like a Lego robotics class — to more than 60 middle and high school students. The activities were part of Sandia’s Dream Catchers Science Program at the University of New Mexico-Gallup campus.
Shadid named SIAM fellow
Sandia computational scientist and mathematician John Shadid has been named a 2018 Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, based upon his research on solution methods for multiphysics systems, scalable parallel numerical algorithms and numerical methods for strongly coupled nonlinear partial differential equations.
‘Keep the pedal down’ for mission work: Nuclear Deterrence all hands
At the annual Nuclear Deterrence portfolio-wide all hands meeting at Sandia, Associate Lab Director Steve Girrens acknowledged the incredible job everyone is doing Labs-wide to successfully deliver on the record amount of mission work, and indicated that the next few years will be even busier than initially predicted.
40th anniversary International Training Course
This spring marked the 40th anniversary of the International Training Course on the physical protection of nuclear material and nuclear facilities. This year's session provided training on international best practices for physical protection of nuclear material and nuclear facilities to 50 participants from 38 countries, as well as two observers from Taiwan.
How microgrids could boost resilience in New Orleans
In a year-long project, researchers at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories teamed up with the city of New Orleans to analyze ways to increase community resilience and improve the availability of critical lifeline services during and after severe weather.
A splash of detergent makes catalytic compounds more powerful
Uniform catalytic compounds produced at Sandia don't just look nice, they outperform commercial varieties used as catalysts in solar cells and which could be used to produce clean-burning hydrogen fuel. If developed for industry, the new technology could improve performance while reducing costs of catalysts used everywhere from environmental cleanup to cancer treatment.
Kids Day at Sandia
Sandia/New Mexico hosted more than 1,800 students across the Labs on April 26 for a combined celebration of Kids Day (formerly Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day) and Earth Day.
Family friendly business award
Options like the 9-80 schedule helped Sandia earn a Gold Award, the highest honor, on April 19 during the Second Annual Family Friendly Business Awards Luncheon, hosted by the nonprofit Family Friendly New Mexico at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.