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Naval Academy midshipmen look at tiny particle fuels while touring ORNL. Credit: Lena Shoemaker/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Nuclear engineering students from the United States Military Academy and United States Naval Academy are working with researchers at ORNL to complete design concepts for a nuclear propulsion rocket to go to space in 2027 as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency DRACO program.

ORNL researchers are establishing a digital thread of data, algorithms and workflows to produce a continuously updated model of earth systems.

Digital twins are exactly what they sound like: virtual models of physical reality that continuously update to reflect changes in the real world.

 

A small droplet of water is suspended in midair via an electrostatic levitator that lifts charged particles using an electric field that counteracts gravity. Credit: Iowa State University/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

How do you get water to float in midair? With a WAND2, of course. But it’s hardly magic. In fact, it’s a scientific device used by scientists to study matter.

Seeing the difference Ac-225 could make to cancer patients made Raina Setzer want to come to ORNL to directly work with the isotope. Credit: Allison Peacock/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Raina Setzer knows the work she does matters. That’s because she’s already seen it from the other side. Setzer, a radiochemical processing technician in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Isotope Processing and Manufacturing Division, joined the lab in June 2023.

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Waiting for answers surrounding a healthcare condition can be as stressful as the condition itself. Maria Mahbub, a research collaborator at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is developing technology that could help providers and patients get answers sooner.

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In response to a renewed international interest in molten salt reactors, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a novel technique to visualize molten salt intrusion in graphite.

Sarah Walters portrait

Walters is working with a team of geographers, linguists, economists, data scientists and software engineers to apply cultural knowledge and patterns to open-source data in an effort to document and report patterns of human movement through previously unstudied spaces.

3d prnited lunar rover wheel based on a NASA design

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in collaboration with NASA, are taking additive manufacturing to the final frontier by 3D printing the same kind of wheel as the design used by NASA for its robotic lunar rover, demonstrating the technology for specialized parts needed for space exploration.

 A group of ORNL staff standing in a long corridor with flags hanging from the ceiling

For 25 years, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have used their broad expertise in human health risk assessment, ecology, radiation protection, toxicology and information management to develop widely used tools and data for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the agency’s Superfund program.

Attendees of SMC23 pose for their annual group photo in downtown Knoxville, TN.

ORNL hosted its annual Smoky Mountains Computational Sciences and Engineering Conference in person for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.