Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology
national laboratory sponsored by the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by
UT–Battelle
UT–Battelle, LLC is a nonprofit limited liability company (LLC) organized under the laws of Tennessee. Its members consist of the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply ...
as a
federally funded research and development center
Federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) are public-private partnerships that conduct research and development for the United States Government. Under Federal Acquisition Regulationbr>§ 35.017 FFRDCs are operated by unive ...
(FFRDC) under a
contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
with the DOE, located in
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...
.
Established in 1943, ORNL is the largest science and energy national laboratory in the Department of Energy system (by size) and third largest by annual budget. It is located in the
Roane County section of
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of downtown Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 31,402 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area. Oak ...
.
Its scientific programs focus on
materials
Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologic ...
,
nuclear science
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
,
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
science, energy,
high-performance computing
High-performance computing (HPC) uses supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
Overview
HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into a mult ...
,
systems biology
Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...
and
national security
National security, or national defence, is the security and defence of a sovereign state, including its citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of government. Originally conceived as protection against military atta ...
, sometimes in partnership with the state of Tennessee, universities and other industries.
ORNL has several of the world's top
supercomputers
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions p ...
, including
Frontier
A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts o ...
, ranked by the
TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non-distributed computing, distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these ...
as the world's most powerful. The lab is a leading
neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...
and
nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
research facility that includes the
Spallation Neutron Source
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source facility in the U.S. that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development.In 2007, SNS was entered into thG ...
, the
High Flux Isotope Reactor
The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) is a nuclear research reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Operating at 85 MW, HFIR is one of the highest flux reactor-based sources of neutrons for condense ...
, and the
Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences is the first of the five Nanoscale Science Research Centers sponsored by the United States Department of Energy. It is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and is a collaborative research facility for the sy ...
.
Overview
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by
UT–Battelle
UT–Battelle, LLC is a nonprofit limited liability company (LLC) organized under the laws of Tennessee. Its members consist of the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply ...
,
a
limited liability partnership
A limited liability partnership (LLP) is a partnership in which some or all partners (depending on the jurisdiction) have limited liabilities. It therefore can exhibit elements of partnerships and corporations. In an LLP, each partner is not ...
between the
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
and the
Battelle Memorial Institute
Battelle Memorial Institute (more widely known as simply Battelle) is a private nonprofit applied science and technology development company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. Battelle is a charitable trust organized as a nonprofit corporation u ...
, formed in 2000 for that purpose. The annual budget is US$2.4 billion. As of 2021 there is a staff of 5,700 working at ORNL, around 2,000 of whom are scientists and engineers, and an additional 3,200 guest researchers annually.
There are five campuses on the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation: the National Laboratory, the
Y-12 National Security Complex
The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan Proje ...
, the East Tennessee Technology Park (formerly the
Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant), the
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
The Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) is a U.S. Department of Energy asset providing expertise in STEM workforce development, scientific and technical reviews, and the evaluation of radiation exposure and environmental contamin ...
, and the developing Oak Ridge Science and Technology Park, although the four other facilities are unrelated to the National Laboratory.
The total area of the reservation 150 square kilometres (58 sq mi) of which the lab takes up 18 square kilometres (7 sq mi).
History
In 1934, the
Freel Farm Mound Site
The Freel Farm Mound Site (40AN22) (formerly 7AN22) is an archaeological site and burial mound of the Late Woodland period located on the Oak Ridge Reservation in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The site was excavated in 1934 as part of the Norris Basin ...
, an archaeological site and burial mound of the
Late Woodland period
In the classification of archaeological cultures of North America, the Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures spanned a period from roughly 1000 BCE to European contact in the eastern part of North America, with some archaeologi ...
was excavated.
The city of
Oak Ridge was established by the
Army Corps of Engineers as part of the
Clinton Engineer Works
The Clinton Engineer Works (CEW) was the production installation of the Manhattan Project that during World War II produced the enriched uranium used in the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, as well as the first examples of reactor-produced plutoni ...
in 1942 on isolated farm land as part of the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
.
During the war, advanced research for the government was managed at the site by the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
's
Metallurgical Laboratory
The Metallurgical Laboratory (or Met Lab) was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and m ...
. In 1943, construction of the "Clinton Laboratories" was completed, later renamed to "Oak Ridge National Laboratory".
[ The site was chosen for the X-10 Graphite Reactor, used to produce ]plutonium
Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...
from natural uranium
Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
for the Manhattan project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
. Enrico Fermi
Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...
and his colleagues developed the world's second self-sustaining nuclear reactor
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
after Fermi's previous experiment, the Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of t ...
. The X-10 was the first reactor designed for continuous operation. After the end of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
the demand for weapons-grade plutonium fell and the reactor and the laboratory's 1,000 employees were no longer involved in nuclear weapons. Instead, it was used for scientific research.[ In 1946 the first ]medical isotopes
A medical isotope is an isotope used in medicine.
The first uses of isotopes in medicine were in radiopharmaceuticals, and this is still the most common use. However more recently, separated stable isotopes have also come into use.
Examples of ...
were produced in the X-10 reactor, and by 1950 almost 20,000 samples had been shipped to various hospitals.[ As the demand for ]military science
Military science is the study of military processes, institutions, and behavior, along with the study of warfare, and the theory and application of organized coercive force. It is mainly focused on theory, method, and practice of producing mil ...
had fallen dramatically, the future of the lab was uncertain. Management of the lab was contracted by the US government to Monsanto
The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in th ...
; however, they withdrew in 1947.[ The ]University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
re-assumed responsibility, until in December 1947, when Union Carbide and Carbon Co., which already operated two other facilities at Oak Ridge, took control of the laboratory. Alvin Weinberg
Alvin Martin Weinberg (; April 20, 1915 – October 18, 2006) was an American nuclear physicist who was the administrator at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) during and after the Manhattan Project. He came to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1945 ...
was named Director of Research, ORNL, and in 1955 Director of the Laboratory.[
]
In 1950 the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology
Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology (ORSORT) was the successor of the school known locally as the Clinch College of Nuclear Knowledge, later shorten to Clinch College. ORSORT was authorized and financed by the U.S. government and founded in 1950 ...
was established with two courses in reactor operation and safety; almost 1,000 students graduated.[ Much of the research performed at ORNL in the 1950s was related to nuclear reactors as a form of energy production, both for propulsion and electricity. More reactors were built in the 1950s than in the rest of the ORNL's history combined.][
Another project was the world's first ]light water reactor
The light-water reactor (LWR) is a type of thermal-neutron reactor that uses normal water, as opposed to heavy water, as both its coolant and neutron moderator; furthermore a solid form of fissile elements is used as fuel. Thermal-neutron reacto ...
. With its principles of neutron moderation and fuel cooling by ordinary water, it is the direct ancestor of most modern nuclear power stations. The US Military
The United States Armed Forces are the Military, military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six Military branch, service branches: the United States Army, Army, United States Marine Corps, Marine Corps, United States N ...
funded much of its development, for nuclear-powered submarines and ships of the US Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...
.[
The ]US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
contracted portable nuclear reactors in 1953 for heat and electricity generation in remote military bases. The reactors were designed at ORNL, produced by American Locomotive Company
The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...
and used in Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...
, the Panama Canal Zone
The Panama Canal Zone ( es, Zona del Canal de Panamá), also simply known as the Canal Zone, was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the terr ...
and Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
.[ The ]United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
(USAF) also contributed funding to three reactors, the lab's first computers, and its first particle accelerators.[ ORNL designed and tested a nuclear-powered aircraft in 1954 as a proof-of-concept for a proposed USAF fleet of long-range bombers, although it never flew.][
The provision of ]radionuclide
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transfer ...
s by X-10 for medicine grew steadily in the 1950s with more isotopes available. ORNL was the only Western source of californium-252
Californium (98Cf) is an artificial element, and thus a standard atomic weight cannot be given. Like all artificial elements, it has no stable isotopes. The first isotope to be synthesized was 245Cf in 1950. There are 20 known radioisotopes rang ...
.[ ORNL scientists lowered the ]immune system
The immune system is a network of biological processes that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to parasitic worms, as well as cancer cells and objects such as wood splinte ...
s of mice and performed the world's first successful bone marrow transplant
Hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) is the transplantation of multipotent hematopoietic stem cells, usually derived from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or umbilical cord blood in order to replicate inside of a patient and to produce ...
.[
In the early 1960s there was a large push at ORNL to develop nuclear-powered ]desalination
Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination refers to the removal of salts and minerals from a target substance, as in Soil salinity control, soil desalination, which is an issue f ...
plants, where deserts met the sea, to provide water. The project, called Water for Peace, was backed by John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
and Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
, and presented at a 1964 United Nations conference, but increases in the cost of construction and falling public confidence in nuclear power caused the plan to fail.[ The Health Physics Research Reactor built in 1962 was used for radiation exposure experiments leading to more accurate dosage limits and ]dosimeter
A radiation dosimeter is a device that measures dose uptake of external ionizing radiation. It is worn by the person being monitored when used as a personal dosimeter, and is a record of the radiation dose received. Modern electronic personal dos ...
s, and improved radiation shielding.[
In 1964 the ]Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment
The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment (MSRE) was an experimental molten salt reactor research reactor at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This technology was researched through the 1960s, the reactor was constructed by 1964, it went critica ...
began with the construction of the reactor. It was operated from 1966 until 1969 (with six months down time to move from U-235
Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exists ...
to U-233 fuel), and proved the viability of molten salt reactor
A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a molten salt mixture. Only two MSRs have ever operated, both research reactors in the United States. The 1950's Ai ...
s, while also producing fuel for other reactors as a byproduct of its own reaction.[
The ]High Flux Isotope Reactor
The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) is a nuclear research reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Operating at 85 MW, HFIR is one of the highest flux reactor-based sources of neutrons for condense ...
built in 1965 had the highest neutron flux
The neutron flux, φ, is a scalar quantity used in nuclear physics and nuclear reactor physics. It is the total length travelled by all free neutrons per unit time and volume. Equivalently, it can be defined as the number of neutrons travelling ...
of any reactor at the time.[ It improved upon the work of the X-10 reactor, producing more medical isotopes, as well as allowing higher fidelity of materials research.][
Researchers in the Biology Division studied the effects of chemicals on mice, including petrol fumes, ]pesticides
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampric ...
, and tobacco
Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
.[
In the late 1960s, cuts in funding led to the cancellation of plans for another particle accelerator, and the ]United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President H ...
cut the breeder reactor program by two-thirds, leading to a downsizing in staff from 5000 to 3800.[
]
In the 1970s, the prospect of fusion power
Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion, nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nucleus, atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, whi ...
was strongly considered, sparking research at ORNL. A tokamak
A tokamak (; russian: токамáк; otk, 𐱃𐰸𐰢𐰴, Toḳamaḳ) is a device which uses a powerful magnetic field to confine plasma in the shape of a torus. The tokamak is one of several types of magnetic confinement devices being d ...
called ORMAK, made operational in 1971, was the first tokamak to achieve a plasma temperature of 20 million Kelvin. After the success of the fusion experiments, it was enlarged and renamed ORMAK II in 1973; however, the experiments ultimately failed to lead to fusion power plants.[
The US Atomic Energy Commission required improved safety standards in the early 1970s for nuclear reactors, so ORNL staff wrote almost 100 requirements covering many factors including fuel transport and earthquake resistance. In 1972 the AEC held a series of public hearings where emergency cooling requirements were highlighted and the safety requirements became more stringent.][
ORNL was involved in analysing the damage to the core of the ]Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station
Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (commonly abbreviated as TMI) is a closed nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania on Lake Frederic, a reservoir in the Susquehanna River just s ...
after the accident in 1979.[
Also in 1972, ]Peter Mazur Peter Mazur (born Vienna, Austria, 11 December 1922; died Lausanne, Switzerland, 15 August 2001) was an Austrian-born, Dutch physicist and one of the founders of the field of non-equilibrium thermodynamics. He is the father of Harvard University phy ...
, a biologist at ORNL, froze with liquid nitrogen
Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is wide ...
, thawed and implanted mouse embryo
An embryo is an initial stage of development of a multicellular organism. In organisms that reproduce sexually, embryonic development is the part of the life cycle that begins just after fertilization of the female egg cell by the male spe ...
s in a surrogate mother
Surrogacy is an arrangement, often supported by a legal agreement, whereby a woman agrees to delivery/labour for another person or people, who will become the child's parent(s) after birth. People may seek a surrogacy arrangement when pregnan ...
. The mouse pups were born healthy.[ The technique is popular in the livestock industry, as it allows the embryos of valuable cattle to be transported easily and a prize cow can have multiple eggs extracted and thus, through ''in vitro'' fertilisation, have many more offspring than would naturally be possible.][
In 1974 Alvin Weinberg, director of the lab for 19 years, was replaced by ]Herman Postma
Herman Postma (March 29, 1933 – November 7, 2004) was an American scientist and educational leader. Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, he moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1959 after attending Duke University, Duke, Harvard University, Harvard ...
, a fusion scientist.[
In 1977 construction began for 6 metre (20 foot) ]superconducting
Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic field, magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material e ...
electromagnet
An electromagnet is a type of magnet in which the magnetic field is produced by an electric current. Electromagnets usually consist of wire wound into a coil. A current through the wire creates a magnetic field which is concentrated in the ...
s, intended to control fusion reactions. The project was an international effort: three electromagnets were produced in the US, one in Japan, one in Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and the final by remaining European states. Experimentation continued into the 1980s.[
The 1980s brought more changes to ORNL: a focus on efficiency became paramount.
An accelerated climate simulation chamber was built that applied varying weather conditions to insulation to test its efficacy and durability faster than real time.][ Materials research into heat resistant ]ceramics
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
for use in truck and high-tech car engines was performed, building upon the materials research that began in the nuclear reactors of the 1950s.[ In 1987 the High Temperature Materials Laboratory was established, where ORNL and industry researchers cooperated on ceramic and alloy projects. The materials research budget at ORNL doubled after initial uncertainty regarding Reagan's economic policy of less government expenditure.][
In 1981, the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility, a 25 MV particle accelerator, was opened at ORNL. At the time, Holifield had the widest range of ion species and was twice as powerful as other accelerators, attracting hundreds of guest researchers each year.][
The Department of Energy was concerned with the pollution surrounding ORNL and it began clean-up efforts. Burial trenches and leaking pipes had contaminated the groundwater beneath the lab, and radiation tanks were sitting idle, full of waste. Estimates of the total cost of clean-up were into the hundreds of millions of US dollars.][
The five older reactors were subjected to safety reviews in 1987, ordered to be deactivated until the reviews were complete. By 1989 when the High Flux Isotope Reactor was restarted the US supply of certain medical isotopes was depleted.][
In 1989 the former executive officer of the ]American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
, Alvin Trivelpiece
Alvin W. Trivelpiece (died 2022) was an American physicist whose varied career included positions as director of the Office of Energy Research of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), executive officer of the American Association for the Advancem ...
, became director of ORNL; he remained in the role until 2000.[
In 1992, a ]whistleblower
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...
, Charles Varnadore, filed complaints against ORNL, alleging safety violations and retaliation by his superiors. While an administrative law judge ruled in Varnadore's favor, the Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich (; born June 24, 1946) is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of President of the United States, Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as United S ...
, overturned that ruling. However, Varnadore's case saw prime contractor Martin Marietta
The Martin Marietta Corporation was an American company founded in 1961 through the merger of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation. In 1995, it merged with Lockheed Corporation to form Lockheed Martin.
History
Martin Mari ...
cited for safety violations, and ultimately led to additional whistleblower protection within DOE.
In January 2019 ORNL announced a major breakthrough in its capacity to automate Pu-238 production which helped push annual production from 50 grams to 400 grams, moving closer to NASA's goal of 1.5 kilograms per year by 2025 in order to sustain its space exploration programs.
Areas of research
ORNL conducts research and development activities that span a wide range of scientific disciplines. Many research areas have a significant overlap with each other; researchers often work in two or more of the fields listed here. The laboratory's major research areas are described briefly below.
* Chemical sciences
Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, properties, ...
– ORNL conducts both fundamental and applied research in a number of areas, including catalysis
Catalysis () is the process of increasing the rate of a chemical reaction by adding a substance known as a catalyst (). Catalysts are not consumed in the reaction and remain unchanged after it. If the reaction is rapid and the catalyst recyc ...
, surface science
Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the fiel ...
and interfacial chemistry; molecular transformations and fuel chemistry; heavy element chemistry and radioactive materials characterization; aqueous solution chemistry and geochemistry
Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the e ...
; mass spectrometry
Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...
and laser spectroscopy; separations chemistry; materials chemistry including synthesis and characterization of polymers
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...
and other soft materials; chemical biosciences; and neutron science.
* Electron microscopy
An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...
– ORNL's electron microscopy program investigates key issues in condensed matter
Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the su ...
, materials
Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologic ...
, chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...
and nanosciences.
* Nuclear medicine
Nuclear medicine or nucleology is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging, in a sense, is "radiology done inside out" because it records radiation emitting ...
– The laboratory's nuclear medicine research is focused on the development of improved reactor production and processing methods to provide medical radioisotopes
A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...
, the development of new radionuclide generator systems, the design and evaluation of new radiopharmaceuticals for applications in nuclear medicine and oncology
Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''ó ...
.
* Physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...
– Physics research at ORNL is focused primarily on studies of the fundamental properties of matter
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic partic ...
at the atom
Every atom is composed of a nucleus and one or more electrons bound to the nucleus. The nucleus is made of one or more protons and a number of neutrons. Only the most common variety of hydrogen has no neutrons.
Every solid, liquid, gas, and ...
ic, nuclear
Nuclear may refer to:
Physics
Relating to the nucleus of the atom:
* Nuclear engineering
*Nuclear physics
*Nuclear power
*Nuclear reactor
*Nuclear weapon
*Nuclear medicine
*Radiation therapy
*Nuclear warfare
Mathematics
*Nuclear space
*Nuclear ...
, and subnuclear levels and the development of experimental devices in support of these studies.
* Population – ORNL provides federal, state and international organizations with a gridded population database, called Landscan, for estimating ambient population. LandScan is a raster image, or grid, of population counts, which provides human population estimates every 30 x 30 arc seconds, which translates roughly to population estimates for 1 kilometer square windows or grid cells at the equator, with cell width decreasing at higher latitudes. Though many population datasets exist, LandScan is the best spatial population dataset, which also covers the globe. Updated annually (although data releases are generally one year behind the current year) offers continuous, updated values of population, based on the most recent information. Landscan data are accessible through GIS
A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...
applications and a USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...
public domain application called Population Explorer.
Energy
The laboratory has a long history of energy research; nuclear reactor experiments have been conducted since the end of World War II in 1945. Because of the availability of reactors and high-performance computing resources an emphasis on improving the efficiency of nuclear reactors is present. The programs develop more efficient materials, more accurate simulations of aging reactor cores, sensors and controls as well as safety procedures for regulatory authorities.[
The Energy Efficiency and Electricity Technologies Program (EEETP) aims to improve air quality in the US and reduce dependence on foreign oil supplies.] There are three key areas of research; electricity, manufacturing and mobility. The electricity division focuses on reducing electricity consumption and finding alternative sources for production. Buildings, which account for 39% of US electricity consumption as of 2012, are a key area of research as the program aims to create affordable, carbon-neutral
Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the "p ...
homes by 2020. Research also takes place into higher efficiency solar panels, geothermal electricity and heating, lower cost wind generators and the economic and environmental feasibility of potential hydro power plants.
Fusion is another area with a history of research at ORNL, dating back to the 1950s. The Fusion Energy Division pursues short-term goals to develop components such as high temperature superconductor
High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previou ...
s, high-speed hydrogen pellet injectors and suitable materials for future fusion research. Much research into the behaviour and maintenance of a plasma takes place at the Fusion Energy Division to further the understanding of , a crucial area for developing a fusion power plant.[ The US ]ITER
ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Earth ...
office is at ORNL with partners at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory for plasma physics and nuclear fusion science. Its primary mission is research into and development of fusion as an energy source. It is known ...
and Savannah River National Laboratory
The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) is a multi-program national laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management. SRNL is located at the Savannah River Site (SRS) near Jackson, South Carolina. It ...
. The US contribution to the ITER project is 9.1% which is expected to be in excess of US$1.6 billion throughout the contract.
Biology
Oak Ridge National Laboratory's biological research covers genomics
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...
, computational biology
Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...
, structural biology
Structural biology is a field that is many centuries old which, and as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every le ...
and bioinformatics
Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...
. The BioEnergy Program aims to improve the efficiency of all stages of the biofuel
Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (E ...
process to improve the energy security
Energy security is the association between national security and the availability of natural resources for energy consumption. Access to (relatively) cheap energy has become essential to the functioning of modern economies. However, the uneven ...
of the United States. The program aims to make genetic improvements to the potential biomass used, formulate methods for refineries that can accept a diverse range of fuels and to improve the efficiency of energy delivery both to power plants and end users.
The Center for Molecular Biophysics conducts research into the behaviour of biological molecules in various conditions. The center hosts projects that examine cell walls
A cell wall is a structural layer surrounding some types of cells, just outside the cell membrane. It can be tough, flexible, and sometimes rigid. It provides the cell with both structural support and protection, and also acts as a filtering mech ...
for biofuel production, use neutron scattering
Neutron scattering, the irregular dispersal of free neutrons by matter, can refer to either the naturally occurring physical process itself or to the man-made experimental techniques that use the natural process for investigating materials. Th ...
to analyse protein folding
Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain is translated to its native three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" conformation by which the protein becomes biologically functional. Via an expeditious and reproduci ...
and simulate the effect of catalysis on a conventional and quantum scale.
Neutron science
There are two neutron source
A neutron source is any device that emits neutrons, irrespective of the mechanism used to produce the neutrons. Neutron sources are used in physics, engineering, medicine, nuclear weapons, petroleum exploration, biology, chemistry, and nuclear p ...
s at ORNL; the High Flux Isotope Reactor
The High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) is a nuclear research reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Operating at 85 MW, HFIR is one of the highest flux reactor-based sources of neutrons for condense ...
(HFIR) and the Spallation Neutron Source
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source facility in the U.S. that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development.In 2007, SNS was entered into thG ...
. HFIR provides neutrons in a stable beam resulting from a constant nuclear reaction
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two atomic nucleus, nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a t ...
whereas SNS, a particle accelerator, produces pulses of neutrons. HFIR went critical
Critical or Critically may refer to:
*Critical, or critical but stable, medical states
**Critical, or intensive care medicine
*Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences.
*Critical Software, a company specializing in ...
in 1965 and has been used for materials research and as a major source of medical radioisotopes
Radiopharmacology is radiochemistry applied to medicine and thus the pharmacology of radiopharmaceuticals (medicinal radiocompounds, that is, pharmaceutical drugs that are radioactive). Radiopharmaceuticals are used in the field of nuclear medi ...
since. As of 2013, HFIR provides the world's highest constant neutron flux
The neutron flux, φ, is a scalar quantity used in nuclear physics and nuclear reactor physics. It is the total length travelled by all free neutrons per unit time and volume. Equivalently, it can be defined as the number of neutrons travelling ...
as a result of various upgrades.[ ]Berkelium
Berkelium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Bk and atomic number 97. It is a member of the actinide and transuranium element series. It is named after the city of Berkeley, California, the location of the Lawrence Berke ...
used to produce the world's first sample of tennessine
Tennessine is a synthetic chemical element with the symbol Ts and atomic number 117. It is the second-heaviest known element and the penultimate element of the 7th period of the periodic table.
The discovery of tennessine was officially ann ...
was produced in the High Flux Isotope Reactor as part of an international effort. HFIR is likely to operate until approximately 2060 before the reactor vessel
A reactor pressure vessel (RPV) in a nuclear power plant is the pressure vessel containing the nuclear reactor coolant, core shroud, and the Nuclear reactor core, reactor core.
Classification of nuclear power reactors
Russian Soviet era RBMK rea ...
is considered unsafe for continued use.
The Spallation
Spallation is a process in which fragments of material (spall) are ejected from a body due to impact or stress. In the context of impact mechanics it describes ejection of material from a target during impact by a projectile. In planetary p ...
Neutron Source (SNS) is a particle accelerator that has the highest intensity neutron pulses of any man-made neutron source. SNS was made operational in 2006 and has since been upgraded to 1 megawatt with plans to continue up to 3 megawatts. High power neutron pulses permit clearer images of the targets meaning smaller samples can be analysed and accurate results require fewer pulses.
Materials
Oak Ridge National Laboratory conducts research into materials science in a range of areas. Between 2002 and 2008 ORNL partnered with Caterpillar Inc.
Caterpillar Inc. (stock symbol CAT) is an American ''Fortune'' 500 corporation and the world's largest construction-equipment manufacturer.
In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 65 on the ''Fortune'' 500 list and number 238 on the Global ''Fo ...
(CAT) to form a new material for their diesel engines that can withstand large temperature fluctuations. The new steel, named CF8C Plus, is based on conventional CF8C stainless steel with added manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy use ...
and nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
; the result has better high–temperature properties and is easier to cast at a similar cost.[ In 2003 the partners received an R&D 100 award from ''R&D magazine'' and in 2009 received an award for "excellence in technology transfer" from the ]Federal Laboratory Consortium The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is a U.S.-based nationwide network of federal laboratories that provides a forum to develop strategies and opportunities to help transfer laboratory mission technologies into commercial ...
for the commercialisation of the steel.[
There is a high-temperature materials lab at ORNL that permits researchers from universities, private companies and other government initiatives to use their facilities. As is the case for all designated user facilities, the resources of the High Temperature Materials Laboratory are available for free if the results are published; private research is permitted but requires payment.]
The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) researches the behaviour and fabrication of nanomaterials
*
Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit is sized (in at least one dimension) between 1 and 100 nm (the usual definition of nanoscale).
Nanomaterials research takes a materials science-based approach to nan ...
. The center emphasises discovery of new materials and the understanding of underlying physical and chemical interactions that enable creation of nanomaterials. In 2012, CNMS produced a lithium-sulfide battery with a theoretical energy density three to five times greater than existing lithium ion batteries
A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also sees ...
.
Security
Oak Ridge National Laboratory provides resources to the US Department of Homeland Security
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...
and other defense programs. The Global Security and Nonproliferation (GS&N) program develops and implements policies, both US based and international, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear material. The program has developed safeguards for nuclear arsenals, guidelines for dismantling arsenals, plans of action should nuclear material fall into unauthorised hands, detection methods for stolen or missing nuclear material and trade of nuclear material between the US and Russia.[ The GS&N's work overlaps with that of the Homeland Security Programs Office, providing detection of nuclear material and nonproliferation guidelines. Other areas concerning the Department Homeland Security include nuclear and radiological ]forensics
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and crimina ...
, chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...
and biological agent
A biological agent (also called bio-agent, biological threat agent, biological warfare agent, biological weapon, or bioweapon) is a bacterium, virus, protozoan, parasite, fungus, or toxin that can be used purposefully as a weapon in bioterroris ...
detection using mass spectrometry
Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a ''mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is use ...
and simulations of potential national hazards.
High-performance computing
Throughout the history of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory it has been the site of various supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
s, home to the fastest on several occasions. In 1953, ORNL partnered with the Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...
to build ORACLE
An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination.
Description
The word '' ...
(Oak Ridge Automatic Computer and Logical Engine), a computer to research nuclear physics
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
, chemistry
Chemistry is the science, scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the Chemical element, elements that make up matter to the chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions ...
, biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...
and engineering. ORACLE had 2048 words
A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consen ...
(80 Kibit) of memory
Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
and took approximately 590 microsecond
A microsecond is a unit of time in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one millionth (0.000001 or 10−6 or ) of a second. Its symbol is μs, sometimes simplified to us when Unicode is not available.
A microsecond is equal to 1000 n ...
s to perform addition or multiplications of integers. In the 1960s ORNL was also equipped with an IBM 360/91 and an IBM 360/65. In 1995 ORNL bought an Intel Paragon
The Intel Paragon is a discontinued series of massively parallel supercomputers that was produced by Intel in the 1990s. The Paragon XP/S is a productized version of the experimental ''Touchstone Delta'' system that was built at Caltech, launched ...
based computer called the ''Intel Paragon XP/S 150'' that performed at 154 gigaFLOPS
In computing, floating point operations per second (FLOPS, flops or flop/s) is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations. For such cases, it is a more accurate meas ...
and ranked third on the TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non-distributed computing, distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these ...
list of supercomputers.[ In 2005 ]Jaguar
The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...
was built, a Cray XT3
The Cray XT3 is a distributed memory massively parallel MIMD supercomputer designed by Cray Inc. with Sandia National Laboratories under the codename '' Red Storm''. Cray turned the design into a commercial product in 2004. The XT3 derives much o ...
-based system that performed at 25 teraFLOPS and received incremental upgrades up to the XT5 platform that performed at 2.3 petaFLOPS in 2009. It was recognised as the world's fastest from November 2009 until November 2010. Summit was built for Oak Ridge National Laboratory during 2018, which benchmarked at 122.3 petaflops. As of June 2020, Summit was the world's second fastest lockedsupercomputer with 202,752 CPU cores, 27,648 Nvidia Tesla GPUs and 250 Petabytes of storage, having lost the top position to the Japanese Fugaku supercomputer. In May 2022, the ORNL Frontier system broke the exascale barrier, achieving 1.102 exaflop/s using 8,730,112 cores.
Since 1992 the Center for Computational Sciences (CCS) has overseen high performance computing at ORNL. It manages the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility
The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), formerly the National Leadership Computing Facility, is a designated user facility operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Department of Energy. It contains several supercomputers, the ...
that contains the machines. In 2012, Jaguar was upgraded to the XK7 platform, a fundamental change as GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
s are used for the majority of processing, and renamed Titan
Titan most often refers to:
* Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn
* Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology
Titan or Titans may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Fictional entities
Fictional locations
* Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
. Titan performed at 17.59 petaFLOPS and held the number 1 spot on the TOP500 list for November 2012. Other computers include a 77 node cluster to visualise data that the larger machines output in the ''Exploratory Visualization Environment for Research in Science and Technology'' (EVEREST), a visualisation room with a 10 by 3 metre (30 by 10 ft) wall that displays 35 megapixel projections. Smoky is an 80 node linux cluster used for application development. Research projects are refined and tested on Smoky before running on larger machines such as Titan.
In 1989 programmers at the Oak Ridge National Lab wrote the first version of Parallel Virtual Machine
Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) is a software tool for parallel networking of computers. It is designed to allow a network of heterogeneous Unix and/or Windows machines to be used as a single distributed parallel processor. Thus large computatio ...
(PVM), software that enables distributed computing
A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different computer network, networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by message passing, passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed com ...
on machines of differing specifications. PVM is free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
and has become the de facto standard for distributed computing. Jack Dongarra
Jack Joseph Dongarra (born July 18, 1950) is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is the American University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the Unive ...
of ORNL and the University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, ...
wrote the LINPACK software library and LINPACK benchmarks
The LINPACK Benchmarks are a measure of a system's floating-point computing power. Introduced by Jack Dongarra, they measure how fast a computer solves a dense ''n'' by ''n'' system of linear equations ''Ax'' = ''b'', which is a common ...
, used to calculate linear algebra
Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as:
:a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b,
linear maps such as:
:(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n,
and their representations in vector spaces and through matrices.
...
and the standard method of measuring floating point performance of a supercomputer as used by the TOP500
The TOP500 project ranks and details the 500 most powerful non-distributed computing, distributed computer systems in the world. The project was started in 1993 and publishes an updated list of the supercomputers twice a year. The first of these ...
organisation.
Notable people
See also
* American Museum of Science and Energy
The American Museum of Science and Energy (AMSE) is a science museum in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, designed to teach children and adults about energy, especially nuclear power, and to document the role Oak Ridge played in the Manhattan Project. The mu ...
* Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
* Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences is the first of the five Nanoscale Science Research Centers sponsored by the United States Department of Energy. It is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and is a collaborative research facility for the sy ...
* K-25 Gaseous Diffusion Plant
* Karl Z. Morgan
Karl Ziegler Morgan (September 27, 1907 – June 8, 1999), was an American physicist who was one of the founders of the field of radiation health physics. Late in life, after a long career in the Manhattan Project and at Oak Ridge National Labora ...
* Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...
* National Transportation Research Center ''For the sigma N-transcription factor activator protein in prokaryotes, see NtrC''
The National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) is an institution, located in Knoxville, Tennessee, that conducts research and development aimed at increasing th ...
* Sandia National Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force Bas ...
* Spallation Neutron Source
The Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) is an accelerator-based neutron source facility in the U.S. that provides the most intense pulsed neutron beams in the world for scientific research and industrial development.In 2007, SNS was entered into thG ...
* Thorium Energy Alliance
Thorium Energy Alliance (TEA) is a non-governmental, non-profit 501(c)3, educational organization based in the United States, which seeks to promote energy security of the world through the use of thorium as a fuel source. The potential for the ...
* United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers
* Y-12 National Security Complex
The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was built as part of the Manhattan Proje ...
Footnotes
Further reading
* Lindsey A. Freeman, ''Longing for the Bomb: Oak Ridge and Atomic Nostalgia.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
External links
*
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