Oak Ridge Today

ORNL glass shop makes equipment for researchers

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has its own glass shop, where scientific glass blowers make custom orders for researchers for experiments and sometimes modify purchased products. ORNL Scientific Glassblower and Shop Manager Jason Craig has been blowing glass for almost 25 years. (Photo by Kate Trabalka)

When people think of glass blowing, they think of unique vases and colorful works of art made in places like Dollywood or Asheville. Not many people know that Oak Ridge has its very own scientific glass blowers working for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

ORNL has its own glass shop on site. Scientific Glassblower and Shop Manager Jason Craig has been blowing glass for almost 25 years.

According to Craig, ORNL has always had a glass shop. The glass shop now has been in its current building since 1955. There used to be 10 glass blowers at ORNL, and two or three at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Now Craig and Carlos Rodriguez-Flores are the two full-time glassblowers, with a retired glass blower who comes in part-time.

Craig started out as an artistic glass blower before transitioning to scientific glass blowing.

“Working in a (glass shop) at a research facility is much different than blowing glass in a production shop or for artistic glass blowing,” Craig said during an interview in the ORNL glass shop last week. “So, I guess my greatest challenge is just trying to…keep track of the customers and the jobs and ordering materials, inventory, and gas cylinders, and all that stuff…We’re basically running our own business here inside the laboratory.”

[Read more…]

Titan, once the world’s fastest computer, will be retired Aug. 1

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

The Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory debuted as the fastest computer in the world in 2012, and it remained in the top 10 for seven years, providing billions of core hours of total computing time to researchers from around the world. The system will be decommissioned on Aug. 1, 2019, and its data center space will be retrofitted for a new supercomputer, Frontier. (Photo by ORNL)

A supercomputer that was once the world’s fastest will be retired at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on August 1.

The supercomputer is a Cray XK7 machine called Titan. It is operated by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility. It’s a petaflop system capable of performing up to 27 quadrillion calculations per second.

Titan was the world’s fastest supercomputer in November 2012, but it was bumped to number two by Tianhe-2, a Chinese supercomputer in June 2013. Still, Titan continued to rank as one of the world’s top 10 fastest supercomputers from its debut at number one in 2012 until this June, when it dropped to number 12.

In June, ORNL said Titan, which has been operating for seven years, will be decommissioned on August 1 and disassembled for recycling. Titan will be removed to make room for a new, much more powerful supercomputer, Frontier. That will be an exascale system capable of 1.5 exaflops, or 1.5 quintillion calculations per second (a billion billion calculations per second). Frontier will be a $600 million Cray computer that is expected to be the world’s most powerful when it debuts in 2021.

[Read more…]

Demarteau to head ORNL Physics Division

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

Marcellinus Demarteau

By Dawn Levy

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has named Marcel Demarteau as Physics Division Director, effective June 17.

“Marcel brings a keen sense of physics research to the Physics Division and will help in shaping its future in the areas of heavy-ion collisions, fundamental symmetries, neutrino physics, nuclear structure and astrophysics, and stable isotope production and research,” said David Dean, associate laboratory director for physical sciences.  

An expert in particle collider physics and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Demarteau leads research in the structure and evolution of the universe. He chairs several advisory committees through which the particle physics community takes stock of past progress and charts future enterprises.

[Read more…]

World’s two fastest supercomputers at DOE labs

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

The new Summit supercomputer, a 200-petaflop IBM system that is the world’s most powerful, is pictured above at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Katie Bethea/ORNL)

The United States has the two fastest supercomputers in the world, and they are both at U.S. Department of Energy laboratories.

DOE and its National Nuclear Security Administration have two other supercomputers in the top 10.

“DOE’s national labs have some of the brightest minds in the world, which have made America a worldwide leader in high-performance computing hardware, software, and applications,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in a press release Monday. â€œWe are well-positioned to maintain this leadership as we enter the era of exascale computing, which holds enormous promise for our country and will transform our leadership in science, our economy, and our nation’s security.”

As reported by Oak Ridge Today on Monday, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is still the fastest supercomputer in the world.

[Read more…]

ORNL’s Summit remains world’s most powerful supercomputer

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

The Summit supercomputer, a 200-petaflop IBM system that is the world’s most powerful, is pictured above at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Katie Bethea/ORNL)

The Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory remains the world’s most powerful, according to a ranking list released Monday.

It’s the third time that Summit, a IBM-built supercomputer, has been number one on the semiannual TOP500 list of of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Summit debuted at number one in June 2018. That was the first time since 2012 that the United States had the most powerful supercomputer in the world. Summit retained the top spot in November.

The Sierra supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, remained at number two on the list released Monday, after climbing there from number three in November. The United States continues to have the top two systems in the world, a position that China held a year and a half ago.

Officials celebrated the launch of Summit in a ceremony attended by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on June 8, 2018. The supercomputer is capable of 200 petaflops, or 200,000 trillion calculations per second. That makes it about eight times more powerful than Titan, its predecessor, which was once the world’s fastest.

Summit delivered a record 148.6 petaflops on a benchmark test called High Performance Linpack, or HPL, a TOP500 press release said Monday. That was a slight improvement from six months ago, when Summit scored 143.5 petaflops. Summit debuted at 122.3 petaflops in June 2018.

[Read more…]

DOE awards new contract to support environmental cleanup in Oak Ridge

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

Five contracts worth up to $24.9 million total have been awarded to small businesses to help support the cleanup of federal sites in Oak Ridge.

The awardees include one company based in Oak Ridge and two based in Knoxville.

The awards were announced last week by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management as part of its Characterization, Deactivation/Demolition, and Remediation Services contract.

The Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management, or OREM, said it will use the awards to advance cleanup progress across the Oak Ridge Reservation by issuing task orders to conduct characterization, demolish lower hazard buildings, dispose waste, and provide technical support.

[Read more…]

Secret City Radio Show presents Robinella, Sarah Pirkle on Friday

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

The Secret City Radio Show on Friday, May 10, 2019, will feature local singer/songwriter Robinella with special guests songwriter/fiddle player Sarah Pirkle and Giffin Vann. (Submitted photo)

The Secret City Radio Show on Friday will feature local singer/songwriter Robinella with special guests songwriter/fiddle player Sarah Pirkle and Giffin Vann.

The Secret City Radio Show will be broadcast live from the new American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge by East Tennessee’s WDVX 89.9 FM. The show is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Friday, May 10. You can also listen on 102.9 FM in Knoxville, at 93.9 FM in Seymour and Kodak, and online at WDVX.com.

Amber McBride of Oak Ridge National Laboratory will present some innovative bioscience technology that is preserving forests around the world, and UCOR will present the Clinch River Trail Alliance, a press release said.

[Read more…]

ORNL: New research facility will serve expanding missions in computing, materials R&D

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

A conceptual drawing is shown above for the new Translational Research Capability at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Image courtesy ORNL)

Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, and lab officials broke ground Tuesday morning on a multipurpose research facility that will provide laboratory space for expanding scientific activities at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The new Translational Research Capability, or TRC, will be built for world-leading research in computing and materials science, and it will serve to advance the science and engineering of quantum information, a press release said.

“Through today’s groundbreaking, we’re writing a new chapter in research at the Translational Research Capability Facility,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry said in the press release. “This building will be the home for advances in quantum information science, battery and energy storage, materials science, and many more. It will also be a place for our scientists, researchers, engineers, and innovators to take on big challenges and deliver transformative solutions.”

[Read more…]

Citing ‘rumor factory,’ Perry dismisses DOE exit story

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

Rick Perry

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry on Tuesday dismissed a news story that he plans to leave the U.S. Department of Energy, and he suggested the story was the product of a “rumor factory.”

Perry was asked about the Bloomberg News story during a brief question-and-answer session with reporters at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Tuesday morning, after DOE and Cray announced that Frontier, an exascale supercomputer to be built at the lab, is expected to be the world’s most powerful when it debuts in 2021.

Perry said there have been previous reports that he planned to move to the Veterans Administration, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense.

“I guess the rumor factory ran out of places for me to move inside the Cabinet,” Perry said.

[Read more…]

DOE: New $600 million supercomputer at ORNL will be world’s most powerful

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

Pictured above from left during an announcement for the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory on Tuesday, May 7, 2019, are Energy Secretary Rick Perry; ORNL Director Thomas Zacharia; Peter Ungaro, Cray president and chief executive officer; and Lisa Su, AMD president and CEO. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)

Note: This story was last updated at 3 p.m. May 21.

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a contract with Cray Inc. to build the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is expected to be the world’s most powerful supercomputer when it debuts in 2021.

The contract with Cray is valued at more than $600 million for the system and technology development, a press release said.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry was at ORNL on Tuesday morning to make the announcement.

“This is a big deal,” Perry said. “Frontier’s record-breaking performance will ensure our country’s ability to lead the world in science that improves the lives and economic prosperity of all Americans and the entire world. Frontier will accelerate innovation in AI (artificial intelligence) by giving American researchers world-class data and computing resources to ensure the next great inventions are made in the United States.”

Besides the supercomputing announcement on Tuesday, Perry also delivered the keynote speech at InnovationXLab: Advanced Manufacturing Summit at ORNL.

Frontier is expected to perform at greater than 1.5 exaflops. It will be able to solve calculations up to 50 times faster than today’s top supercomputers, exceeding a quintillion, or 1018, calculations per second, the press release said. That’s a billion billion calculations per second.

Oak Ridge Today has previously reported that Frontier would be built at ORNL. But the contract with Cray and its value and the specific performance estimate of more than 1.5 exaflops are all new announcements. The contract award includes technology development funding, a center of excellence, several early-delivery systems, the main Frontier system, and multi-year systems support. The Frontier system is expected to be delivered in 2021, and acceptance is expected in 2022. 

[Read more…]

DOE updating security order after intelligence reports about drone threats

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

A drone is pictured above. (Photo courtesy Federal Aviation Administration)

The U.S. Department of Energy is updating a classified security order that will reflect recent intelligence assessments about the threats posed by unmanned aerial systems, or drones, as some federal officials express concerns that terrorists could use drones to harm the United States.

That information is included in a report issued by the DOE Inspector General, or IG, in April.

While developing the report, the IG reviewed controls in place at the Y-12 National Security Complex and Idaho National Laboratory. The IG found that the National Nuclear Security Administration, including Y-12, has been proactive in establishing “limited internal controls” that include observing and reporting unmanned aerial systems, as well as using deadly force if hostile intent is determined.

The IG said drones are becoming increasingly popular, and some unmanned aerial systems that are commercially available and relatively affordable have high-definition cameras, auto pilot global positioning system navigation, and the ability to carry and remotely release payloads.

[Read more…]

ORNL, UMaine to work on 3D printing with wood products

Posted at
By Leave a Comment

On Thursday, officials announced a new research collaboration between the University of Maine and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory that they say will advance efforts to 3D print with wood products, creating a new market for Maine’s forest products industry. Pictured above among the officials are U.S. senators Susan Collins, center; Lamar Alexander, third from right; and Angus King, third from left; and Daniel Simmons, the assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at DOE, as well as leaders from UMaine and ORNL. The officials were in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 2, 2019, to announce the launch of this large-scale bio-based additive manufacturing program. (Photo courtesy office of Sen. Susan Collins)

A partnership between the University of Maine and Oak Ridge National Laboratory will use ground-up trees and bioplastics to make “very strong plastics” that can be used in 3D printing, officials said Thursday.

The 3D printing, which will print items one layer at a time, could be used to make boat hull molds, shelters, building components, and tooling for composites and wind blades, among other possibilities.

The $20 million project will be funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office.

ORNL is considered the leading laboratory for the type of work known as additive manufacturing, said U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican who was among the officials at the announcement in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

[Read more…]