Xiaoguang Zhang and Eliot Specht have been named American Physical Society fellows. (Submitted photo)
Two researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been elected to fellowship in the American Physical Society.
Xiaoguang Zhang and Eliot Specht were named APS fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to physics.
APS fellowship is limited to no more than 0.5 percent per year of the society’s more than 50,000 members. [Read more…]
Once they’ve finished powering electric vehicles for hundreds of thousands of miles, it may not be the end of the road for automotive batteries, which researchers believe can provide continued benefits for consumers, automakers, and the environment.
Five used Chevrolet Volt batteries are at the heart of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s effort to determine the feasibility of a community energy storage system that would put electricity onto the grid. During the next year, researchers from ORNL, General Motors, and the ABB Group will conduct studies and compile data using a first-of-its-kind test platform officially commissioned Tuesday. [Read more…]
Retired Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher and UT-Battelle Corporate Fellow Richard Haire has received the 2013 Glenn T. Seaborg Award by the American Chemical Society. The Seaborg Award is one of the top recognitions in the field of nuclear chemistry.
Known for his forefront, fundamental studies of the actinide family of elements, Haire, while at ORNL, concentrated on the transplutonium elements produced in the U.S. Department of Energy research reactor, the High Flux Isotope Reactor, or HFIR. He developed novel experimental techniques and emphasized the use of systematic comparisons, which focused on the role of electron configurations in the chemistry and physics of these elements. [Read more…]
A technology being developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory promises to provide clear images of the brains of children, the elderly, and people with Parkinson’s and other diseases without the use of uncomfortable or intrusive restraints.
Awake imaging provides motion compensation reconstruction, which removes blur caused by motion, allowing physicians to get a transparent picture of the functioning brain without anesthetics that can mask conditions and alter test results. The use of anesthetics, patient restraints, or both is not ideal because they can trigger brain activities that may alter the normal brain functions being studied. [Read more…]
Jeff Nichols, associate director for computing and computational sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in front of Titan, the world’s fastest supercomputer. (Photos courtesy of ORNL)
Connectors in the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been repaired, and workers are preparing the world’s fastest machine for a second round of acceptance testing, an official said Monday.
That testing could allow the $100 million machine to be put into full production mode by the end of this month or early May, said Jeff Nichols, ORNL associate lab director for computing and computational sciences.
Titan won’t be available to researchers for a short period while the lab re-runs acceptance tests. [Read more…]
Carol Wood
A.C. Buchanan III
Three researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received appointments and honors from their respective professional societies.
ORNL’s Carol Wood has been elected to a four-year term on the board of directors of the American Board of Toxicology. She is a senior research staff member in the Environmental Sciences Division at ORNL.
Wood was elected from more than 40 nominees. Ernest McConnell, president of ToxPath Inc., a former board member who served as president of the ABT board from 1987 to 1988, nominated her for the award. [Read more…]
From left, Oak Ridge High School’s Andreas Franco feeds discs into the team’s robot as Tag Groff, Oak Ridge National Laboratory mentor Mark Buckner, and Amelia DiAngelo manage the controls. (Photo by Jason Richards/ORNL)
Frisbee-flinging robots took over the Knoxville Convention Center last weekend, as thousands of high school students, mentors, and volunteers gathered for the third annual FIRST robotics Smoky Mountains regional competition.
Local teams Hardin Valley Academy, Oak Ridge High School, and Halls High School netted the championship title in a nail-biting finale at the regional event, qualifying them to compete in the national finals held April 24-27 in St. Louis. A team from Roane County High School, which won the Rookie All Star award, is also bound for nationals. The four high schools are among 14 teams sponsored by UT-Battelle, the managing contractor of Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The FIRST robotics competition gives high school teams six weeks to design, build, and program a complex robot that can meet the intense demands of the year’s game. Throwing discs and climbing pyramids were among the challenges of the 2013 game, called Ultimate Ascent. [Read more…]
Gary R. Lownsdale of Plasan Carbon Composites, right, talks to Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam, center, near a Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 hood at the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility on Tuesday as federal, University of Tennessee, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory officials listen.
A unique manufacturing plant in west Oak Ridge that started operating about six weeks ago can make 25 tons of carbon fiber each year. It’s material that could be used for prototype parts in products ranging from cars and airplanes to wind turbine blades and natural gas tanks.
The $35 million Carbon Fiber Technology Facility at Horizon Center Business Park is designed to “scale up” laboratory research on low-cost carbon fiber, make enough material to help industrial partners build prototype carbon-fiber composite parts, and develop a skilled manufacturing workforce.
Carbon fiber is strong and lightweight, but it is also expensive and that has limited its use.
Officials hope to use the 42,000-square-foot Carbon Fiber Technology Facility to change that. They want to make producing carbon fiber as cost-efficient as manufacturing steel or aluminum. [Read more…]
Technologies from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are among winners of 2013 national and regional Federal Laboratory Consortium Awards.
ORNL’s awards, which recognize outstanding work in transferring a federal laboratory-developed technology to the commercial marketplace, were in the Excellence in Technology Transfer and Interagency Partnerships categories. [Read more…]
Jeff Nichols, associate director for computing and computational sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in front of Titan, the world’s fastest supercomputer. (Photos courtesy of ORNL)
Hundreds of connectors are being re-soldered each week, and the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory—the world’s fastest machine—could be in regular production by May, a lab official said Wednesday.
Jeff Nichols, ORNL associate lab director for computing and computational sciences, said connectors on the $100 million computer’s motherboards had too much gold, and solder was interacting with the gold on connector pins, making the solder unstable and leading to cracks.
There are about 20,000 of the pencil-sized connectors, which link central and graphic processing units, or CPUs and GPUs. Each connector has about 100 pins.
Shawn Reeves
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Shawn Reeves has been awarded the 2013 Outstanding Technologist Award in Physical Sciences from the Microscopy Society of America.
She is a member of the microscopy group in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division.
Reeves, a Lenoir City resident, will receive the award during the plenary session of the Microscopy and Microanalysis Annual Meeting in Indianapolis this summer.
The Oak Ridge Environmental Research Park’s first spring nature walk of 2013 will focus on studies of the American woodcock and winter astronomy on Saturday, Feb. 23.
The walk from 5:30-9 p.m. will include opportunities to view demonstrations of the American woodcock’s elaborate flight displays. Also, a trained falconer from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency will have two different hawks on hand for participants to learn about.
