Tractor-trailers operating with single wider tires recorded improved fuel efficiency numbers between 7.2 and 10 percent when compared to rigs operating on standard-sized dual tires. A year-long truck performance study managed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Heavy Truck Safety Research program con...
Fingerprints that used to escape detection could soon help point to the killer. Using a field portable system being developed by ChemImage and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, investigators at crime scenes will be able to detect latent prints on human skin. The system takes advantage of surface-enhanc...
Using pulsed thermal processing, low-cost thin-film solar cells could see efficiency gains of up to 50 percent, increasing from their current level of about 8 percent to 12 percent. The trick is in using millisecond bursts of 12 megawatts available from the radiant high-density plasma arc lamp at Oa...
A new test facility recently installed at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory could pay dividends for "big science" projects down the road, including the proposed International Linear Collider. The cryomodule test facility was built to test the superconducting linear accel...
Advanced gas reactors offer more efficient operation, less waste disposal and other benefits over water-cooled reactor designs used in U.S. nuclear power plants. But creating fuel that burns efficiently and reliably in the higher temperatures of advanced gas reactors has been a challenge until now...
Emergency management officials miles from the scene of an event will see exactly what first responders are up against with a system being tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. RealityVision uses common mobile devices to allow for real-time video streaming, which will provide better support for ma...
Computer simulations published in April in Physical Review Letters have shown that pairs of proteins bound to each other undergo a profound change in their relative motion as they heat up, a phenomenon that could provide clues to how proteins interact to govern living cells. The molecular dynamic...
Super-secret encryption systems, personal identification data that cannot be stolen and enhanced sensors are just a few of the applications for a quantum optical chip being developed by Warren Grice and colleagues in the Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate. Their work is part of a new f...
Knowing beforehand whether a system for detecting weapons of mass destruction at U.S. ports will be practical and effective can make for smooth sailing. PortSim, a security simulation and visualization tool developed by Dan Koch, does just that by taking away any guesswork for evaluating the operati...
The Department of Energy's Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's most powerful pulsed neutron spallation source. The SNS recently ramped up beam power to more than 300 kilowatts, producing 4.8 x 10e 16 neutr...