Carlisle recognized for precision engineering

In a career spanning two countries, engineer Keith Carlisle has sought to span the conceptual world of the research and academic community and the practical needs of industry and defense manufacturing.

Perhaps that's why Livermore is such a good fit for the British-born mechanical engineer and why he has been asked to bring the full breadth of his experience and skills in precision engineering to bear on critical Laboratory research projects from new manufacturing capabilities for Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) to crystal machining for the National Ignition Facility (NIF).

"The National Ignition Facility is where precision engineering is happening today," Carlisle said. "This is a fantastic project with great opportunities for research. The Laser Inertial Fusion-fission Energy (LIFE) program is the next big opportunity and only a national lab such as Livermore can take this on."

In March, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers elected Carlisle a fellow for his international record and contributions to the field. "It's an honor to have been selected," Carlisle said. "My position at an internationally known place like Livermore has a lot of clout."

Last year (2008), Carlisle received a Defense Programs Award of Excellence when his design for the next generation shell machine for pit manufacturing at Los Alamos was selected over five others. Carlisle's design was selected because it has a small footprint, takes advantage of the most modern machine technology, features a U.S. machine-tool supplier, and uses as many off-the-shelf parts as possible, which reduces the cost.

As director of the LLNL's Center for Precision Engineering in 2002, Carlisle led the project to design, build, test and install a complete production line of machines and equipment for fabricating KDP crystals for Cleveland Crystal in Cleveland, Ohio. The machines are used to diamond-fly cut large — 42-cm — KDP crystals used as switch crystals, frequency doublers and frequency triplers in the final optics assembly of the NIF laser.

Carlisle began his career as an apprentice building propulsion systems for the Royal Navy. He then went to work for Cranfield Precision in Cranfield, (UK), a company specializing in high-precision and specialty machine tools. Home to a technical research university, including college of aeronautics, Cranfield is a place that brings together the research, defense (Atomic Weapons Establishment) and commercial industry. Carlisle earned a master's degree in precision engineering from Cranfield.

The decline of American manufacturing has made the acquisition of specialty machinery for the weapons program a challenge, Carlisle said, noting that national labs such as Livermore still have the capability to design and build special purpose machines. He envisions a national center to support "the design and building of special purpose machines. We need to secure our future."

As a "practical engineer," Carlisle sees an important part of his role as identifying opportunities to leverage Lab capabilities and technologies. "I work with some very bright technologists, but they don't always see these opportunities," he said. "Because of my commercial background, I see a lot of opportunities on the business side."

Carlisle is active in and an advocate for the profession through numerous international engineering societies as well as the American Society of Precision Engineering. "Precision engineering is moving technology to the next decimal point. We're now working at the nanometer and atomic scale," he said. "Precision engineering is what makes Moore's law work. The application of precision engineering is fundamental and applies to most everything by which we measure our quality of life."