Oak Ridge Today

ORNL wins six R&D 100 awards

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BAAM-RD100-ORNL-2015

The Big Area Additive Manufacturing-CI system, developed by ORNL and Cincinnati Incorporated, was among ORNL’s six 2015 R&D 100 award winners. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received six R&D 100 awards, increasing the lab’s total to 193 since the award’s inception in 1963.

The competition, sponsored by R&D Magazine, recognizes advances in the nation’s most impactful technologies and the scientists and engineers who led the effort. This year, ORNL researchers earned awards for the following innovations:

The Big Area Additive Manufacturing-CI system was developed by ORNL researchers and Cincinnati Incorporated. BAAM-CI also received an Editor’s Choice award from R&D Magazine. [Read more…]

HED: Silica ‘spiky screws’ could enhance industrial coatings, additive manufacturing

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It took marine sponges millions of years to perfect their spike-like structures, but research mimicking these formations may soon alter how industrial coatings and 3-D printed objects are produced.

A molecular process developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory paves the way for improved silica structure design by introducing microscopic, segmented screw-like spikes that can more effectively bond materials for commercial use.

The study, conducted by Jaswinder Sharma and his colleagues Panos Datskos and David Cullen, has been published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Authors said other applications of the screw-like spikes could include coatings for eyeglasses, television screens, commercial transportation, and even self-cleaning windows and roofs in rural and urban environments.

Created by emulsion droplets applied to a silica particle’s surface, the new, segmented spikes offer an alternative tool for material scientists and engineers that can better maintain and fuse bonds within a variety of microstructures. [Read more…]

ORNL demonstrates first large-scale graphene composite fabrication

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ORNL Graphene

ORNL’s ultrastrong graphene features layers of graphene and polymers and is an effective conductor of electricity. (Image courtesy ORNL)

 

One of the barriers to using graphene at a commercial scale could be overcome using a method demonstrated by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Graphene, a material stronger and stiffer than carbon fiber, has enormous commercial potential but has been impractical to employ on a large scale, with researchers limited to using small flakes of the material.

Now, using chemical vapor deposition, a team led by ORNL’s Ivan Vlassiouk has fabricated polymer composites containing 2-inch-by-2-inch sheets of the one-atom thick hexagonally arranged carbon atoms.

The findings, reported in the journal Applied Materials & Interfaces, could help usher in a new era in flexible electronics and change the way this reinforcing material is viewed and ultimately used. [Read more…]

3-D printed Shelby Cobra highlights ORNL R&D at Detroit Auto Show

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Shelby Cobra 3D Print at ORNL

This Shelby Cobra sports car, 3D-printed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will be on display this week at the Detroit Auto Show Technology Showcase. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

With a 3-D printed twist on an automotive icon, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is showcasing additive manufacturing research at the 2015 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

ORNL’s newest 3-D printed vehicle pays homage to the classic Shelby Cobra in celebration of the racing car’s 50th anniversary. The 3-D printed Shelby will be on display January 12-15 as part of the show’s inaugural Technology Showcase.

Researchers printed the Shelby car at DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL using the Big Area Additive Manufacturing, or BAAM, machine, which can manufacture strong, lightweight composite parts in sizes greater than one cubic meter. The approximately 1,400-pound vehicle contains 500 pounds of printed parts made of 20 percent carbon fiber. [Read more…]

Startup company licenses ORNL tool that will help consumers lower energy bills

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Fiveworks Licenses ORNL Technology

Knoxville-based Fiveworx has licensed an Oak Ridge National Laboratory technology called CoNNECT that will help consumers reduce their utility bills by analyzing their home energy usage. CoNNECT inventors (from left) Olufemi Omitaomu and Budhendra Bhaduri talk with Fiveworx CEO Patrick Hunt. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

 

Knoxville-based Fiveworx has licensed an Oak Ridge National Laboratory technology that will help consumers reduce their utility bills by analyzing their home energy usage.

The ORNL technology, called Citizen Engagement for Energy Efficient Communities (CoNNECT), enables utility customers to easily monitor their energy consumption in a user-friendly Web-based platform. Fiveworx will apply the CoNNECT tool toward its mission to help utilities increase participation in their energy efficiency programs while reducing their marketing costs.

“Our goal is to motivate consumers to do five or more things to save money on their utility bills,” said Fiveworx CEO Patrick Hunt. “By combining principles of behavioral economics, consumer segmentation, big data, and predictive analytics, we help utilities give their customers a truly personalized energy savings plan that they’ll embrace and use to adopt energy efficient measures and behaviors.” [Read more…]

ORNL paper examines clues for superconductivity in an iron-based material

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FERMI Figure

A change of Hall and Seebeck effects point to large Fermi surface modification at the structural transition, preventing superconductivity at low temperatures. The change in the Fermi surface topology has been confirmed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. (Image courtesy ORNL)

For the first time, scientists have a clearer understanding of how to control the appearance of a superconducting phase in a material, adding crucial fundamental knowledge and perhaps setting the stage for advances in the field of superconductivity.

The paper, published in Physical Review Letters, focuses on a calcium-iron-arsenide single crystal, which has structural, thermodynamic, and transport properties that can be varied through carefully controlled synthesis, similar to the application of pressure. To make this discovery, researchers focused on how these changes alter the material’s Fermi surface, which maps the specific population and arrangement of electrons in materials.

“The Fermi surface is basically the ‘genetic code’ for causing a certain property, including superconductivity, in a material,” said Athena Safa-Sefat of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which led the research team. “We can make different phases of this material in single crystal forms and measure their structure and properties, but now we have Fermi surface signatures that explain why we can’t induce superconductivity in a certain structural phase of this material.” [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…]