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Advanced materials research to enable energy-efficient, cost-competitive and environmentally friendly technologies for the United States and Japan is the goal of a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Japan’s National Institute of Materials Science.

Researchers at ORNL have developed the first additive manufacturing slicing computer application to simultaneously speed and simplify digital conversion of accurate, large-format three-dimensional parts in a factory production setting. 

Researchers used quantum simulations to obtain new insights into the nature of neutrinos — the mysterious subatomic particles that abound throughout the universe — and their role in the deaths of massive stars.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed free data sets to estimate how much energy any building in the contiguous U.S. will use in 2100. These data sets provide planners a way to anticipate future energy needs as the climate changes.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists ingeniously created a sustainable, soft material by combining rubber with woody reinforcements and incorporating “smart” linkages between the components that unlock on demand.

Building innovations from ORNL will be on display in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall June 7 to June 9, 2024, during the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Innovation Housing Showcase. For the first time, ORNL’s real-time building evaluator was demonstrated outside of a laboratory setting and deployed for building construction. 

Momentum for manufacturing innovation in the United States got a boost during the inaugural MDF Innovation Days, held recently at the U.S. Department of Energy Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

ORNL researchers have teamed up with other national labs to develop a free platform called Open Energy Data Initiative Solar Systems Integration Data and Modeling to better analyze the behavior of electric grids incorporating many solar projects. 

When scientists pushed the world’s fastest supercomputer to its limits, they found those limits stretched beyond even their biggest expectations. In the latest milestone, a team of engineers and scientists used Frontier to simulate a system of nearly half a trillion atoms — the largest system ever modeled and more than 400 times the size of the closest competition.

Scientists at ORNL completed a study of how well vegetation survived extreme heat events in both urban and rural communities across the country in recent years. The analysis informs pathways for climate mitigation, including ways to reduce the effect of urban heat islands.