Alissa Tabirian
NS&D Monitor
11/20/2015
15 projects from National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) labs, some of which feature nuclear deterrence applications, were chosen last week as winners of R&D Magazine’s annual R&D 100 Awards recognizing “the top technology products of the year,” according to the magazine.
One of the winners in the software and services category was the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) Structural Health Monitoring software for aerospace, civil and mechanical infrastructure. The software, which could be applied in support of the NNSA’s Stockpile Stewardship initiative, detects damage to critical structures such as aircraft and bridges and can “quickly prototype and evaluate damage-detection processes,” LANL spokesman Kevin Roark previously said. Dustin Harvey, a developer of the software from LANL’s Applied Engineering Technology organization, said by email that “the SHMTools project team is excited and honored to receive an R&D 100 Award” and that technologies like this “increase the safety of our daily lives and the nation’s infrastructure, and also play an important role in the monitoring of an aging stockpile.”
Another winner in the IT and electrical category was the Y-12 National Security Complex’s Chemical Identification by Magneto-Elastic Sensing system, a portable sensor that can detect “chemical and biological warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, explosives and illegal drugs,” according to Y-12 contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS). The tool was created in collaboration with the University of Tennessee, a partnership that contributes to the “health of the Nuclear Security Enterprise,” the company said. “CNS considers university collaborations essential to the vitality of our future-focused technology,” it said.
Projects from the Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories were also recognized as award winners, including Lawrence Livermore’s High-Power Intelligent Laser Diode-System and Zero-RK projects and Sandia’s LED Pulser.
