Materials at LANL
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
Exploring the physics, chemistry, and metallurgy of materials has been a primary focus of Los Alamos National Laboratory since its inception. In the early 1940s, very little was known or understood about plutonium, uranium, or their alloys. In addition, several new ionic, polymeric, and energetic materials with unique properties were needed in the development of nuclear weapons. As the Laboratory has evolved, and as missions in threat reduction, defense, energy, and meeting other emerging national challenges have been added, the role of materials science has expanded with the need for continued improvement in our understanding of the structure and properties of materials and in our ability to synthesize and process materials with unique characteristics. Materials science and engineering continues to be central to this Laboratory's success, and the materials capability truly spans the entire laboratory - touching upon numerous divisions and directorates and estimated to include >1/3 of the lab's technical staff. In 2006, Los Alamos and LANS LLC began to redefine our future, building upon the laboratory's established strengths and promoted by strongly interdependent science, technology and engineering capabilities. Eight Grand Challenges for Science were set forth as a technical framework for bridging across capabilities. Two of these grand challenges, Fundamental Understanding of Materials and Superconductivity and Actinide Science. were clearly materials-centric and were led out of our organizations. The complexity of these scientific thrusts was fleshed out through workshops involving cross-disciplinary teams. These teams refined the grand challenge concepts into actionable descriptions to be used as guidance for decisions like our LDRD strategic investment strategies and as the organizing basis for our external review process. In 2008, the Laboratory published 'Building the Future of Los Alamos. The Premier National Security Science Laboratory,' LA-UR-08-1541. This document introduced three strategic thrusts that crosscut the Grand Challenges and define future laboratory directions and facilities: (1) Information Science and Technology enabl ing integrative and predictive science; (2) Experimental science focused on materials for the future; and (3) Fundamental forensic science for nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. The next step for the Materials Capability was to develop a strategic plan for the second thrust, Materials for the Future. within the context of a capabilities-based Laboratory. This work has involved extending our 2006-2007 Grand Challenge workshops, integrating materials fundamental challenges into the MaRIE definition, and capitalizing on the emerging materials-centric national security missions. Strategic planning workshops with broad leadership and staff participation continued to hone our scientific directions and reinforce our strength through interdependence. By the Fall of 2008, these workshops promoted our primary strength as the delivery of Predictive Performance in applications where Extreme Environments dominate and where the discovery of Emergent Phenomena is a critical. These planning efforts were put into action through the development of our FY10 LDRD Strategic Investment Plan where the Materials Category was defined to incorporate three central thrusts: Prediction and Control of Performance, Extreme Environments and Emergent Phenomena. As with all strategic planning, much of the benefit is in the dialogue and cross-fertilization of ideas that occurs during the process. By winter of 2008/09, there was much agreement on the evolving focus for the Materials Strategy, but there was some lingering doubt over Prediction and Control of Performance as one of the three central thrusts, because it overarches all we do and is, truly, the end goal for materials science and engineering. Therefore, we elevated this thrust within the overarching vision/mission and introduce the concept of Defects and Interfaces as a central thrust that had previously been implied but not clearly articulated. The Materials Strategy was then developed over the course of the next six months and is articulated in the next section.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1009557
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-10-02685; LA-UR-10-2685; TRN: US201106%%989
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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