Sean Dunagan knows firsthand how to bring a major project back online after a three-year shutdown. Following the February 2014 events that closed the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, he was the senior WIPP recovery manager at DOE. Now back in Sandia’s employ, Sean manages special projects and remote site support for the Labs’ Carlsbad office.
More than 200 members of Sandia’s workforce got a realistic taste of what might happen in a shooting incident on July 25 in the annual full-scale emergency exercise at the New Mexico site.
Using an artful combination of nanotechnology and basic chemistry, Sandia researchers have encouraged gold nanoparticles to self-assemble into unusually large supercrystals that could significantly improve the detection sensitivity for chemicals such as explosives or drugs.
At a July 2 groundbreaking ceremony, Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, Undersecretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator, described plans to build the new NNSA Albuquerque Complex.
Sandia researchers have built a scaled test assembly that mimics a dry cask storage container for spent nuclear fuel to study how fuel temperatures change during storage and how the fuel’s peak temperatures affect the integrity of the metal cladding surrounding the spent fuel.
Sandia and UK-based Structural Monitoring Systems PLC have been working together for 15 years to create transportation systems that can send a signal when they're damaged. They've outfitted a U.S. bridge with a network of sensors that will alert maintenance engineers when they detect a crack large enough to require repair.
Last week, Sandia hosted the 12th annual Western National Robot Rodeo, a week-long, 11-event competition where eight civilian and military bomb squads from around the region solved challenging, simulated scenarios.
At the annual Nuclear Deterrence portfolio-wide all hands meeting at Sandia, Associate Lab Director Steve Girrens acknowledged the incredible job everyone is doing Labs-wide to successfully deliver on the record amount of mission work, and indicated that the next few years will be even busier than initially predicted.
Sandia transport triathlon puts spent nuclear fuel to the test
Sandians take home five R&D 100 Awards