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Microreactors could offer unique mobility and flexibility—opening the possibility for nuclear energy to reach isolated areas.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists are evaluating paths for licensing remotely operated microreactors, which could provide clean energy sources to hard-to-reach communities, such as isolated areas in Alaska.

ORNL staff members (from left) Ashley Shields, Michael Galloway, Ketan Maheshwari and Andrew Miskowiec are collaborating on a project focused on predicting and analyzing crystal structures of new uranium oxide phases. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are working to understand both the complex nature of uranium and the various oxide forms it can take during processing steps that might occur throughout the nuclear fuel cycle.

ORNL-led collaboration solves a beta-decay puzzle with advanced nuclear models

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., March 11, 2019—An international collaboration including scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory solved a 50-year-old puzzle that explains why beta decays of atomic nuclei 

ORNL nuclear engineer Chris Petrie

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is using ultrasonic additive manufacturing to embed highly accurate fiber optic sensors in heat- and radiation-resistant materials, allowing for real-time monitoring that could lead to greater insights and safer reactors.

Laminations such as these are compiled to form the core of modern electric vehicle motors. ORNL has developed a software toolkit to speed the development of new motor designs and to improve the accuracy of their real-world performance.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists have created open source software that scales up analysis of motor designs to run on the fastest computers available, including those accessible to outside users at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility.

Nuclear—Deep space travel

By automating the production of neptunium oxide-aluminum pellets, Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists have eliminated a key bottleneck when producing plutonium-238 used by NASA to fuel deep space exploration.

The Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors uses its Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) software for the modeling and simulation of various nuclear reactors, such as the Westinghouse AP1000 pressurized water reactor.

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is collaborating with industry on six new projects focused on advancing commercial nuclear energy technologies that offer potential improvements to current nuclear reactors and move new reactor designs closer to deployment.

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Scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory performed a corrosion test in a neutron radiation field to support the continued development of molten salt reactors.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory to partner on various nuclear research and development efforts.

The United Kingdom’s National Nuclear Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have agreed to cooperate on a wide range of nuclear energy research and development efforts that leverage both organizations’ unique expertise and capabilities.

SmartTruck, a small business in Greenville, SC, recently completed its first detailed unsteady analysis using modeling and simulation at the OLCF and became the first company to request certification from the EPA through CFD. Image Credit: SmartTruck

Long-haul tractor trailers, often referred to as “18-wheelers,” transport everything from household goods to supermarket foodstuffs across the United States every year. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, these trucks moved more than 10 billion tons of goods—70.6 ...