Computer models inspired by fusion research - and sand can provide insight toward understanding the complex North American power grid and reducing its vulnerability to blackouts. A dynamic computer model developed by ORNL and university partners simulates an electrical network. By incorpora...
Power blackouts need not interrupt normal routines such as keeping phone circuits and hotel electric systems operating. Using energy sources produced through the concept of distributed generation, Verizon Communications and a Hilton Hotel outside of Gary, Ind., may soon be able to operate reg...
Military helicopters, combat vehicles and limousines could be made safer with an improved armor developed by researchers at ORNL. Tests at the lab show that tiles made of ORNL's boron carbide ceramic and facings made of polymer matrix composites provide superior armor-piercing bullet-stopping abilit...
People living in the north-central section of the United States have been treated to earlier hints of spring, according to findings of T.J. Blasing and colleagues in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division. Over the last 25 years, the rapid temperature increases typical of late winter are occurring a...
With the acquisition of a Silicon Graphics, Altix 3000 system, ORNL scientists will have another powerful resource to analyze large sets of data and perform other research vital to science. The new system features 256 just released Intel Itanium2 processors, 2 terabytes of global shared memory and 1...
A mere 25 degrees can make a big difference in the operating efficiency of a turbine engine, and researchers at ORNL are helping Rolls Royce to demonstrate a technique called phosphor thermography. The technique could be used in the future to optimize turbine designs. Using special optics, a laser a...
If researchers can duplicate in the field what they have done in the lab, uranium that contaminates soil and water could be immobilized at a fraction of the cost of other methods of decontamination. The goal of Matthew Fields and other researchers in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division and at Sta...
Reliability and efficiency are hot issues for manufacturers of microturbines, and companies like United Technologies, Ingersoll-Rand and General Electric look to ORNL for answers to some of their problems. Microturbines, which typically burn natural gas and can supply from 30 kilowatts to 500 kilowa...
Researchers at ORNL in collaboration with the Caterpillar Technical Center have developed a new modified cast austenitic stainless steel with significantly more high-temperature performance, durability and reliability than the common commercial grade of that stainless steel - and at t...
Nanoscale sensors 1,000 times more sensitive than those available today could be available in a couple of years as researchers at ORNL are approaching detection of single molecules under ambient conditions. Already, Panos Datskos and Nickolay Lavrik have set a world record by detecting 5.5 femtogram...