Sandia’s California laboratory was established on March 8, 1956, in Livermore, Calif., to support Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a national-security laboratory created in 1952 to compete with Los Alamos National Laboratory in nuclear weapons design. Sandia had already been providing Los Alamos with ordnance engineering support — turning nuclear physics package designs into deployable weapons — and was asked to do the same for Lawrence Livermore.
At first, small groups of Sandians were sent from Sandia’s New Mexico headquarters to California on temporary assignments. These Sandians worked with Lawrence Livermore staff in their facilities at the former site of the Livermore Naval Air Station. However, after many discussions, the Atomic Energy Committee agreed in 1955 that Sandia should transfer personnel to California and build a permanent facility in Livermore. Sandia/California was born, and construction began on a new site, the naval air station’s former gunnery range, just across the street from Lawrence Livermore.
Operations and personnel at Sandia/California grew steadily, from a few dozen Sandians at the California site’s opening to more than 800 by the end of 1959. As the years passed, Sandia/California acquired more land, added testing areas, and built facilities. The current site hosts approximately 900 employees and about 250 contractors, postdocs, and student interns.
The precursor to Sandia National Laboratories was Z Division, the ordnance design, testing, and assembly arm at Los Alamos. Created in 1945, Z Division soon moved to roomier quarters outside of Albuquerque, N.M., at Sandia Base, a location that facilitated close working relationships with the military. Z Division’s important contributions and rapid growth were recognized first by a new title, Sandia Laboratory, in 1948 and then by a formal separation from Los Alamos in 1949. In 1956, Sandia established a second major facility in Livermore, Calif., and took a plural name, Sandia Laboratories. After Sandia’s designation as one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s unique national laboratories in 1979, the official name was changed to the current one, Sandia National Laboratories.
Initially devoted to ordnance engineering for weapons designed by Lawrence Livermore, Sandia/California’s operations expanded to test support, providing effects test analysis and telemetry for weapon design tests. The two laboratories also started evaluating nuclear detonation as part of the Plowshare Program, which began in 1959 and investigated the use of nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes.
In the late 1960s, Sandia/California moved into applied scientific research. The first forays sprang directly from work in weapon design engineering. For example, the desire to create robust weapon components led to an interest in materials research, while a strong computational capability was developed to support weapon design and testing activities. Moreover, familiarity with the use of tritium in weapon components paved the way for a tritium research program that began in the 1970s and lasted for almost 20 years.
Gas-mixing studies conducted in support of weapon design prompted an interest in combustion research that led to Sandia’s Combustion Research Facility, a Department of Energy user facility dedicated to improving our nation’s ability to use and control combustion processes. In addition, Sandia began investigating the feasibility of alternative energy sources — such as solar energy — during the 1973–74 energy crisis.
Work on energy and infrastructure assurance continues today, as does research in Sandia’s other mission areas: homeland security, defense systems and assessments, nuclear weapons, and nonproliferation.