Texas A&M University said it will partner with Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS) on workforce and technology development programs at the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant in Amarillo, Texas.
The partnership, founded under a February memorandum of understanding between CNS and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), will be based at Pantex’s new John C. Drummond Center, the university said in a Nov. 30 press release. TEES plans to use up to 16,000 square feet in the facility.
Under the partnership, the university said it might help develop:
- Sensors and instrumentation for blast measurements.
- Augmented and virtual reality training for plant operations.
- Additive manufacturing certification.
- First responder training.
- Workforce development programs such as continuing education courses on cybersecurity, nuclear safety, fire safety, criticality engineering, and data analytics.
The work would focus on A&M personnel helping Pantex’s roughly 4,000 employees, according to the release. The facility is also expected to employ significant numbers of future A&M graduates, it adds.
“The partnership accelerates access for TEES to partner with U.S. Department of Energy employees and researchers housed inside the secured-areas of Pantex Plant,” John Sharp, Texas A&M System chancellor, said in the release.
The release did not say when cooperation between the the university and the company would formally begin.
Consolidated Nuclear Security is a partnership of Bechtel National, Leidos, Orbital ATK, and SOC. It manages Pantex and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
Texas A&M is one of the partners in Triad National Security, which on Nov. 1 assumed management of the NNSA’s Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The other partners are Battelle and the University of California.
