Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Spack, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory-developed open source package manager optimized for high performance computing (HPC), is making waves throughout the HPC community, including internationally, as evidenced by a recent tour of European HPC facilities by the tool’s developers. Despite its niche status, Spack (short for Supercomputer PACKage manager), is one of the most popular…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), which manages the High Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program to use supercomputers to advance U.S. manufacturing, today announced the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded nearly $3.8 million for 13 industry projects under the program. The awards mark the fifth round of selectees for the HPC4Mfg Program, led…

Since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began in 2001, more than 350,000 cases of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in servicemen and women have been reported to the Department of Defense (DOD). Despite several decades of failed clinical trials, there remains no acute treatment for TBI and few tools to aid clinicians in providing a…

Renewable energy is on the rise, especially in California, where utility companies are mandated to get at least half of their power from renewable resources, such as solar and wind, by 2030. It may be a positive development for the environment, but questions linger about how electricity generated by residential solar panels and home battery…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have developed a “brain-on-a-chip” device aimed at testing and predicting the effects of biological and chemical agents, disease or pharmaceutical drugs on the brain over time without the need for human or animal subjects. The device, part of the Lab’s iCHIP (in-vitro Chip-Based Human Investigational Platform) project,…

While additive manufacturing (AM), commonly known as 3D printing, is enabling engineers and scientists to build parts in configurations and designs never before possible, the impact of the technology has been limited by layer-based printing methods, which can take up to hours or days to build three-dimensional parts, depending on their complexity. However, by using…

Arctic sea ice loss of the magnitude expected in the next few decades could impact California’s rainfall and exacerbate future droughts, according to new research led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists. The dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice cover observed over the satellite era is expected to continue throughout the 21st century. Over the…

Assessing large magnitude (greater than 6 on the Richter scale) earthquake hazards on a regional (up to 100 kilometers) scale takes big machines. To resolve the frequencies important to engineering analysis of the built environment (up to 10 Hz or higher), numerical simulations of earthquake motions must be done on today’s most powerful computers. The…

“Marine grade” stainless steel is valued for its performance under corrosive environments and for its high ductility — the ability to bend without breaking under stress — making it a preferred choice for oil pipelines, welding, kitchen utensils, chemical equipment, medical implants, engine parts and nuclear waste storage. However, conventional techniques for strengthening this class…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have developed a new, more efficient permanent magnet that removes the deficiencies of conventional samarium and neodymium magnets. The proposed magnet stems from the well-known samarium and cobalt (SmCo5, CaCu5-type structure) magnet, but goes a step further and substitutes most of the cobalt with iron and nickel. More modern neodymium magnets…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have dived down to the atomic scale to resolve every “jiggle and wiggle” of atomic motion that underlies metal strength. In a first-of-its-kind series of computer simulations focused on metal tantalum, the team predicted that, on reaching certain critical conditions of straining, metal plasticity (the ability to change shape under load)…

An inexpensive and useful layered superconductor compound also may be an efficient solid-state material for storing hydrogen. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Energy Materials Network (link is external)(EMN) consortium approach to accelerate material discovery and development is starting to pay off. Through theory and experimentation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory(LLNL) scientists have discovered the key mechanism by which magnesium…

Conducting an experiment that combines high explosives with plutonium — a special nuclear material used in nuclear weapons — is no trivial matter. Not only do researchers need to ensure the plutonium remains “subcritical” to avoid a nuclear explosion, they must be absolutely certain that these materials are confined in a worst-case scenario. On top…

Lawrence Livermore (LLNL) scientists, in collaboration with researchers at Northeastern University(link is external), have developed carbon nanotube pores that can exclude salt from seawater. The team also found that water permeability in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with diameters smaller than a nanometer (0.8 nm) exceeds that of wider carbon nanotubes by an order of magnitude. The nanotubes, hollow…

Hydrogen at elevated temperature creates high electrical conductivity in the Earth’s mantle. New work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists shows the dispersal of water (incorporated as hydrogen in olivine, the most abundant mineral in the upper mantle), could account for high electrical conductivity seen in the asthenosphere (part of the upper mantle just…

Just as members of a marching band align themselves for a performance, carbon nanotubes create a similar configuration. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists recently used synchrotron X-ray scattering to fully capture the hierarchical structure in self-organized carbon nanotube materials from the atomic to micrometer scale. Their work, recently published in the June issue of ACS…