October 08 Issue - Employee Monthly Magazine
2007 Distinguished Performance Award winners selected
Small team awards
Gloveport Retrofit Installation Team members are, front row left to right, Anthony Valdez of Pit Manufacturing (WCM-1), David Rael of System Engineering, and Toby Vigil of Program Management and Production Planning. Back row left to right are Vincent Griego of Health Physics Operations, Dean Martinez of WCM-1, and Michael Cournoyer of TA-55 Operations.
Ejecta Source Team members are, from left to right, Jeremy Payton, Russell Olson, and William Buttler of Neutron Science and Technology (P-23) and James Hammerberg of Solid Mechanics, Equation of State, and Material Properties. Not shown are Michael Zellner of P-23 and Paulo Rigg of Shock and Detonation Physics. Photos by LeRoy N. Sanchez
Nuclear Device Data and Science Team members are, bottom row from left to right, Roddy Walton and Anemarie DeYoung of Neutron Science and Technology (P-23); middle row from left to right, Thomas Gorman of X-2 and Robert Hilko of National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec); and top row from left to right are Chad Olinger of P-23 and Douglas Johnson of NSTec.
Topmast Optimization Team members are, from left to right, Britton Girard, Ted Cochran, and Robert Robey, all of Computational Analysis and Simulation.
National Security Assessment Team members are, from left to right, Miles Baron of X-2, Thomas Kunkle of Geophysics, Stephen Becker of X-2, and R. Allen Riley of International Research, Analysis, and Technical Development.
Wellnitz Team members are, bottom row from left to right, Joyce Martinez and Sheila Armstrong of Applied Physics (X) Division and, top row from left to right, Marie Harper, Carl Gilbert, and Carolyn Mills of X Division. Not pictured is Jackson Carter, also of X Division.
Gloveport Retrofit Installation Team
This team designed an improved gloveport for existing PF-4 gloveboxes at TA-55. Working with a vendor, team members built the new design and installed it at TA-55. The change dramatically reduces the risk of contamination when worn-out gloves are replaced and makes replacement simpler and more efficient.
Changing a glove will no longer require workers to shut down operations and don respirators, because the new gloveport's innovative ring design significantly reduces residual contamination. The gloveport also is easy enough to use that it cuts glove-replacement time to less than two minutes and reduces the expense of the task to one-eighth its current cost. The new design provides additional savings because it can be installed without any cutting, drilling, or welding and without the need for specialized parts or training.
Ejecta Source Team
When a strong pressure wave from the interior of a solid or fluid body strikes the surface, the surface may break up, sending particles—"ejecta"—into the surrounding medium. The characterization of ejecta, including their quantity, distribution, state (solid or liquid), and shape, is vital for validating ejecta models for integration in hydrodynamic codes.
The Ejecta Source Team developed simple methods for measuring the formation of ejecta, which occurs in tenths of microseconds, by using off-the-shelf piezoelectric probes whose accuracy and precision they confirmed through X-ray radiography and experimentation.
The team's study produced a unique high-fidelity dataset for tin and revealed the occurrence of new physical phenomena. The results are providing the basis for advances in modeling and have established Los Alamos as the world leader in ejecta measurements and technology.
Nuclear Device Data and Science Team
The Nevada Test Site's underground nuclear testing program produced two tests with a successful version of a diagnostic known as a pinhole experiment (PINEX). This team has reanalyzed one of those tests, COALORA, and captured images of its primary in action. Such real-time imaging is critical for validating advanced simulation and computing models in support of stockpile stewardship.
The team began its task with an incomplete dataset. To overcome this deficit, team members sought out papers on every aspect of the time-resolved PINEX camera calibration and timing electronics. They also used other diagnostics to calibrate and crosscheck PINEX results. Their diligent work resulted in a successful movie that the Applied Physics Division has used in discussions with a committee from the Strategic Advisory Group Stockpile Assessment Team.
Topmast Optimization Team
The Laboratory's legacy radiation hydrodynamics and burn code for assessing the primary yield of nuclear weapons has been limited by its inability to run on more than one central processing unit. The Topmast Optimization Team rewrote the code's half-million lines to give it parallel capability.
The complexity of this task was greatly increased by the need to complete it during a time when the code was being intensively used in the W76 Life-Extension Program and in the certification of new pits manufactured at TA-55. Team members accommodated continued use of the code by rewriting it incrementally over a full year.
The newly parallel code has enabled Los Alamos to perform its first major sensitivity studies involving thousands of primary implosion and yield simulations, studies that are supporting the effort to quantify margins and uncertainties as a part of weapons assessments.
National Security Assessment Team
This team performed outstanding assessments on issues of high national importance. While the nature of the team's work prohibits substantial elaboration, it is appropriate to note that the team members have applied extraordinary critical analysis and penetrating insight to their assessments, resulting in findings that have earned a number of accolades from national stakeholders at the highest levels.
Wellnitz Team
The Applied Physics Division's Wellnitz Team in February 2007 began moving the equivalent of 1,000 boxes of classified material from four vault-type rooms (VTR), including the Administration Building's Wellnitz Center. The material, which supports weapons design work, was to be consolidated at a single secure location. The team simultaneously negotiated plans to share space in Information Resource Management Division's facility in the National Security Sciences Building and planned for, procured, and supervised installation of 2,000 linear feet of shelving by L-cleared and uncleared contractors in what was already an active classified VTR complex.
The work required flawless attention to security and safety, as well as adherence to a nonnegotiable September 30, 2007, deadline. With the cooperation of staff and management from numerous internal and external organizations, the team finished a week early without a single safety or security incident and without unduly interrupting service to the design community.
Small Team Awards
 |
