Publications

“Technology empowerment” means that innovation is increasingly accessible to ordinary people of limited means. As powerful technologies become more affordable and accessible, and as people are increasingly connected around the world, ordinary people are empowered to participate in the process of innovation and share the fruits of collaborative innovation. This annotated briefing describes technology empowerment and focuses on how empowerment may create challenges to U.S. national security. U.S. defense research as a share of global innovation has dwindled in recent years. With technology empowerment, the role of U.S. defense research is likely to shrink even further while technology empowerment will continue to increase the speed of innovation. To avoid falling too far behind potential technology threats to U.S. national security, U.S. national security institutions will need to adopt many of the tools of technology empowerment.

Abstract not provided.

Abstract not provided.

One of the Department of Energy's programs for assuring the safety and security of nuclear weapons, nuclear power plants and hazardous material containers is discussed. A Fire Science and Technology program has been established at Sandia National Laboratories to integrate those technologies needed for creating validated numerical simulations of real fires and the response by real objects exposed to fire. This paper describes Sandia's program for integrating fire science and technology into predictive capabilities which provide engineering solutions to high-consequence fire-related problems. The integration of solid materials and fire issues will be emphasized.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is engaged actively in research to improve the ability to accurately predict the response of engineered systems to thermal and structural abnormal environments. Abnormal environments that will be addressed in this paper include: fire, impact, and puncture by probes and fragments, as well as a combination of all of the above. Historically, SNL has demonstrated the survivability of engineered systems to abnormal environments using a balanced approach between numerical simulation and testing. It is necessary to determine the response of engineered systems in two cases: (1) to satisfy regulatory specifications, and (2) to enable quantification of a probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). In a regulatory case, numerical simulation of system response is generally used to guide the system design such that the system will respond satisfactorily to the specified regulatory abnormal environment. Testing is conducted at the regulatory abnormal environment to ensure compliance.

To assess the current capability for solving non-gray, anisotropically scattering multidimensional radiation problems, a specific problem was formulated for several participating authors to solve. They each applied their own methods to solve the problem, which was relevant to the modeling of heat transfer in coal-fired furnaces. This paper is a summary of the comparison of the results. Areas where future modeling efforts should address are identified.