Oak Ridge Today

Theoretically twice as fast, Chinese supercomputer could bump Titan from No. 1 spot

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Tianhe-2 Lights

Lights on the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer, which has a theoretical peak that is twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Jack Dongarra)

A new Chinese supercomputer is theoretically twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it could bump Titan from the No. 1 spot on the Top 500 list that will come out on June 17, one of the co-authors of the list said Wednesday.

Titan, which reached the No. 1 spot on the semiannual Top 500 list in November, has a theoretical peak of 27 petaflops, or roughly 27,000 trillion calculations per second.

The Chinese supercomputer, Tianhe-2, also known as TH-2 or Milkyway-2, has a theoretical peak of 54.9 petaflops. It also has about twice as much memory as the Titan system, said Jack Dongarra, a Top 500 co-author, University of Tennessee faculty member, and distinguished research staff member in ORNL’s Computer Science and Mathematics Division. [Read more…]

Energy secretary meets with lab directors, tours ORNL, Y-12

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Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz at ORNL

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, second from right, toured Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Monday. Also pictured are ORNL Director Thom Mason, right; U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, left; and Deputy Secretary Daniel Poneman.

During a short trip to Oak Ridge this week, new Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz toured Oak Ridge National Laboratory, planned to visit the Y-12 National Security Complex, and met with lab directors from across the country. He also met with U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.

Moniz was sworn in as the nation’s 13th Secretary of Energy on May 21, and during his visit to Oak Ridge, he said he is “looking at new ways of doing business” and considering organizational changes. He said his visit here gave him an overview of missions that includes cleanup work, clean energy, scientific research, and nuclear security.

“It’s a tremendous place to come to really get this broad panorama,” Moniz said. [Read more…]

Science Saturdays attract hundreds of students for lectures, tours

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Science Saturday Tour of Spallation Neutron Source

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Clarina De la Cruz, left, gives a tour of the Spallation Neutron Source to Science Saturday attendees Allison Campbell, Michael Campbell, Krista Barrett, and Joseph Gibbs. (Image courtesy of ORNL)

By Morgan McCorkle

Hundreds of science-minded students bypassed Saturday morning cartoons this semester, opting instead to participate in the first year of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Science Saturdays program.

Open to students in grades 8-12, the program’s free weekend lectures and hands-on activities centered on the science of rainbows, robotics and remote handling, the materials genome, crystals, biofuels, supercomputing, climate change, and more. [Read more…]

ORNL researcher wins DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells R&D Award

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Karren More

Karren More

Karren L. More, a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has received the 2013 DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program R&D Award in recognition of her leadership of ORNL’s project on microstructural characterization of fuel cell materials and for her role as a subcontractor on multiple DOE-funded fuel cell research and development projects.

More’s experience with a variety of electron microscopy techniques has enabled unprecedented levels of characterization of a variety of materials used in catalysts, supports, ionomers, gas diffusion layers, and membranes. She has collaborated on numerous fuel cell durability and aging studies with other DOE national laboratories and leading manufacturers such as 3M, General Motors, Ballard, AFCC, Nissan, Nuvera, and UTC.

More works in the Materials Science and Technology Division.

Research effort deep under ground could sort out cosmic-scale mysteries

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Majorana Demo

The Majorana Demonstrator is being assembled and stored 4,850 feet beneath the earth’s surface in enriched copper to limit the amount of background interference from cosmic rays and radioactive isotopes. (Submitted image)

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory has begun delivery of germanium-76 detectors to an underground laboratory in South Dakota in a team research effort that might explain the puzzling imbalance between matter and antimatter generated by the Big Bang.

“It might explain why we’re here at all,” said David Radford, who oversees specific ORNL activities in the Majorana Demonstrator research effort. “It could help explain why the matter that we are made of exists.”

Radford, a researcher in ORNL’s Physics Division and an expert in germanium detectors, has been delivering germanium-76 to Sanford Underground Research Laboratory in Lead, S.D., for the project. After navigating a Valentine’s Day blizzard on the first two-day drive from Oak Ridge, Radford made a second delivery in March. [Read more…]

ORNL researcher discusses 3-D printing Tuesday

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The Friends of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will hold its monthly luncheon lecture meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting will feature speaker Lonnie J. Love, who will discuss the development of 3-D printing and other advanced manufacturing applications at ORNL, a press release said. [Read more…]

Two ORNL researchers, two joint faculty receive DOE early career awards

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DOE Early Career Awards

Pictured from top left, clockwise, are Valentino Cooper, Gaute Hagen, Matthias Schindler, and Jason Hayward. They are 2013 awardees in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. (Submitted photo)

Materials science and physics research led by early career Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists received a boost this week from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science Early Career Research Program.

The program, now in its fourth year, is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during crucial early career years when many scientists do their most formative work. This year’s 61 awardees were selected from a pool of 770 university- and national laboratory-based applicants.

“This highly competitive program is a well-deserved recognition for early-career scientists who are launching their own research programs,” ORNL Director Thom Mason said. “We are delighted that four of this year’s awards are going to researchers associated with ORNL.” [Read more…]

UT names advanced manufacturing expert as Governor’s Chair with ORNL

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Sudarsanam Suresh Babu

Sudarsanam Suresh Babu

Sudarsanam Suresh Babu, an authority in the production, design, and performance of transforming materials into parts, has been named the 11th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.

Babu will serve as Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing. He begins on July 1.

Babu, a professor in the Welding Engineering Program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University, directed a National Science Foundation Industry and University Cooperative Research center focused on materials joining for energy applications. [Read more…]

ORNL analysis predicts extreme weather losses could double by 2050

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By Katie Elyce Freeman

U.S. economic losses from extreme weather could at least double by 2050, according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory analysis published this month in the online edition of the journal Global Environmental Change.

“A side effect of America’s growth has been the tendency to put more people, infrastructure and assets in harm’s way, and when a storm comes through, that increased exposure drives up economic losses,” said author Benjamin Preston, deputy director of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute, who studied historical data from more than 3,000 U.S. counties and used predictive modeling in the assessment. Preston works in impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability science, a field devoted to analyzing the effects of climate change on people, governments and industries. [Read more…]

ORNL-issued iPad stolen in Clinton

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Note: This story was updated at 5:02 p.m.

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory employee reported that a lab-issued iPad was stolen from his car while he and his wife shopped at the Dollar General store on Charles Seivers Boulevard on Tuesday afternoon, according to WYSH Radio in Clinton.

Gregory and Robin Chitwood called police around 2 p.m. Tuesday and reported that the device had been in the car when they went into the store but was gone when they returned, WYSH said. [Read more…]

Hardin Valley Academy senior wins four-year UT-Battelle scholarship

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Meredith Graves UT-Battelle Scholarship

Meredith Graves, a senior at Hardin Valley Academy and winner of the 2013 UT-Battelle Scholarship, is pictured above with Thom Mason, Oak Ridge National Laboratory director. (Submitted photo)

Meredith Graves, a senior at Hardin Valley Academy, is the recipient of the 2013 UT-Battelle Scholarship to the University of Tennessee.

The four-year, $20,000 scholarship, presented annually to a graduating senior with a parent who works at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is awarded annually to an outstanding student who plans to study science, engineering, or mathematics at the University of Tennessee.

Graves, daughter of Van and René Graves of Knoxville, has already been accepted into the University of Tennessee’s Bachelor of Architecture program, where she hopes to apply her interest in STEM-related fields to the design of energy efficient and environmentally friendly structures. [Read more…]

ORNL researchers elected American Physical Society fellows

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Xiaoguang Zhang and Eliot Specht

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…]