Simulation of a WIPP waste-storage barrel rupture due to an internal cook-off event. A multi-disciplinary team provided critical analysis as part of the Technical Assessment Team supporting the investigation of a radiation release at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Subsequent to a February 5, 2014, truck fire, a [...]
Sandia researcher Stephanie Hansen has won an Early Career Research Award from the U.S. Department of Energy. (Photo by Stephanie Blackwell) A $2.5M, five-year Early Career Research Program award from the DOE Office of Science has been won by researcher Stephanie Hansen (in Sandia’s ICF Target Design Dept.) for her fundamental science proposal, [...]
In recent Z Machine experiments, two Helmholz coils unexpectedly altered and slowed the growth of the magneto Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities, a plasma distortion that usually spins quickly out of control and has sunk past efforts to achieve controlled fusion. Radiographs of the process showed that the Helmholz coils’ field altered and slowed magneto-RT instability growth, [...]
On January 1st, two Sandians, Mike Cuneo (Pulsed Power Accelerator S&T Group) and Igal Brener (Applied Photonic Microsystems), were elected Fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Mike was selected for “developments in inertial confinement fusion with magnetically driven implosions and electrode cleaning.” The number of Fellows chosen annually is restricted to [...]
Sandia geoscientist Randall Cygan uses computers to build models showing how contaminants interact with clay minerals. (Photo by Lloyd Wilson) Sandia is developing computer models that show how radioactive waste interacts with soil and sediments, shedding light on waste disposal and how to keep contamination away from drinking water. “Very little is known [...]
Yifeng Wang examines a clay sample from South Dakota as part of iodide experiments. A team of Sandia researchers is working to understand how rapidly iodine-129 released from spent nuclear fuel would move through a deep clay-based geological repository. (Photo by Randy Montoya) Yifeng Wang (Radiological Consequence Management and Response Technologies Dept.) has [...]
The International Tokamak Engineering Reactor (ITER) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering project, which is currently building the world's largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor at the Cadarache facility in the south of France funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the United [...]
Sandia researcher Yifeng Wang examines a clay sample from South Dakota as part of iodide experiments. A team of Sandia researchers is working to understand how fast iodine-129 released from spent nuclear fuel would move through a deep clay-based geological repository. (Photo by Randy Montoya) How fast will iodine-129 released from spent nuclear [...]
Aerial view of the Fukushima plant area in 1975, showing separation between Units 5 & 6 and the majority of the complex. (National Land Image Information color aerial photographs, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism.) Jeff Cardoni (in the Severe Accident Analysis Dept.) presented the paper “MELCOR Simulations of the Severe Accident [...]
Paul Hommert has been named 2013 Laboratory Director of the Year by the FLC for his support of technology transfer activities at Sandia. The FLC said the award recognized the excellence of work during 2012 by Hommert, Sandia’s president and laboratories director, and the entire Sandia tech transfer program. The blue structure is a [...]
