Archived Features for 2010

For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to the resources listed below or to one of our Media Contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to news@ornl.gov.

 
Building gasifiers via simulation
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 29, 2010 — A team of scientists from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is using Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL's) Jaguar supercomputer, located at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), to conduct high-reliability simulations of a coal gasifier in an attempt to make the potential energy alternative more efficient and reliable. The project also aims to demonstrate the impact of simulation on reducing the cost and time required to develop the zero-emissions power plants of the future.

The spin doctor
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 29, 2010 — An electron spin can be compared to the needle of a compass that points either north or south. Some electrons in a full shell point up, canceling out the electromagnetic fields of an equal number of electrons that point down.

SNS user from Johns Hopkins excited by first-day data
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2010 — Collin Broholm, a professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, was clearly excited about the results he was reviewing in the control room of the wide-angular-range chopper spectrometer (ARCS) at SNS.

HTML, HFIR team with industry to find hidden stresses in materials
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2010 — Whether it's that klunky new Hummer you bought for a song, that honey of a BMW sports coupe, farm equipment from John Deere, or a pressurized water nuclear reactor, the materials from which they are made contain hidden stresses that affect safety, longevity, even energy efficiency and the environment.

Scientists, industry use neutron imaging to improve energy efficiency
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 28, 2010 — Neutron scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are partnering with industry to enhance engine and commercial cooling technologies in hopes of making improvements that will optimize fuel and energy efficiency.

ORNL Systems Lead in Petascale Science
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 21, 2010 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) supercomputers continue to demonstrate their importance to the science community, offering unmatched resources to researchers exploring climate change, alternative energy sources, and the full range of critical science challenges.

Driving Blood-Flow Research at The Petascale
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 17, 2010 — Choosing directions during a road trip used to consist of passengers holding a map with arms fully extended and noses to the page trying to decipher exactly where to turn or what exit to take. Today global positioning systems lay out the route for travelers, anticipating the curves of the road, when they have to turn, and where traffic jams and inclement weather await.

DARPA Challenge
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 10, 2010 — The crushing of 180 digitally manufactured (DM) titanium mesh spheres has

OLCF Announces Approximately a Billion Hours for 2011 INCITE Projects
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Dec. 3, 2010 — The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) will provide more than 950 million processor hours via the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, the U.S. government's premier supercomputing allocation, jointly managed by the Department of Energy's leadership computing facilities at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.

Jaguar pounces on child predators
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 30, 2010 — Consumers of child pornography break the law when they download photos and videos from file-sharing networks. But police are more concerned with the porn producers uploading the files. Every new posting means a child is in harm's way. To accelerate the acquisition of information needed to arrest child predators, law enforcement officers have teamed with data analytics experts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a project that will use Jaguar, one of the world's fastest supercomputers, to speedily analyze the activities on file-sharing networks that pinpoint porn producers.

Blood simulation on Jaguar takes Gordon Bell Prize
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 23, 2010 — A team from Georgia Tech, New York University, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) took this year's Gordon Bell Prize by pushing ORNL's Jaguar supercomputer to 700 trillion calculations per second (700 teraflops) with a groundbreaking simulation of blood flow.