LAB REPORT

Science and Technology Making Headlines

Jan. 22, 2016


Pacific and Atlantic southern sections showing upper-ocean warming for the past six decades (1955-2011). Red colors indicate warming and blue colors indicate cooling/ Image by Timo Bremer/LLNL.

Oceans are in hot water

Scientists have known for years that more than 90 percent of the heat energy from manmade global warming goes into the world's oceans instead of the ground. And they've seen ocean heat content rise in recent years.

But a new Lawrence Livermore study, using ocean-observing data that goes back to the 1870s and includes high-tech modern underwater monitors and computer models, tracked how much manmade heat has been buried in the oceans in the past 150 years. In the last two decades alone, it has doubled.

The world's oceans absorbed approximately 150 zettajoules of energy from 1865 to 1997, and then absorbed about another 150 in the next 18 years, according the study.

"The changes we're talking about, they are really, really big numbers," said study co-author Paul Durack, an oceanographer at the Lawrence Livermore. "They are nonhuman numbers."


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Dawn Shaughnessy

She’s elementary

LLNL’s Dawn Shaughnessy and her team at the Heavy Element Group are working to make chemistry class even harder.

There is no element named after her, but she -- a relatively young chemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- is one of the more prolific researchers in the small world of scientists who seek to create entirely new entries to the periodic table that most of us learned about in grade school.

The team she leads was part of the discovery of three out of the four new elements announced last week in collaboration with researchers in Russia and Tennessee. In total, she’s helped discover six of the 26 new elements added since 1940 (one, Livermorium, was named after her Lab).


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From left: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers Ibo Matthews, Wayne King, and Gabe Guss examine a 3D-printed part manufactured using the selective laser melting process. Photo by Julie Russell/LLNL

Using 3D to ensure robustness

3D printing is a fast and effective way to build new objects, but most engineers are taking tentative steps to its mass adoption because the results aren’t proven to be truly robust. Now, physicists hope to convince them once and for all.

The resulting components of 3D printing can be produced more quickly, and with greater intricacy, than conventional techniques. No surprise, then, that GE, NASA and Boeing are experimenting with the technique. But as Wayne King from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory explains, “if we want to put parts into critical applications, they have to meet quality criteria” — and currently not everyone is convinced.

King and fellow researchers from the Laboratory layed down a series of models to describe the precise physics of how the technique works. The idea is to develop a better understanding of how the process behaves at all scales, from microscopic melting and cohesion of the powdered metal to the bulk properties of the final object.


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Illustration of element 117. Animation by Kwei-Yu Chu/LLNL

Growing the periodic table

On Dec. 30, the science of chemistry officially got four new elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) confirmed the discovery of four new chemical elements, all of which had been created in labs. Lawrence Livermore researchers were part of a team discovering three of the four.

Some reports have suggested that these elements “complete” the periodic table of elements. However, further new elements after the latest batch will be created, but it might take a while, because they are getting harder to make.

What the new elements do complete is the seventh row of the periodic table. If and when elements 119 or 120 are made, they will start a whole new row.


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Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers will work on 14 new grid research projects as part of the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium.

The grid goes modern

Lawrence Livermore researchers will work on 14 new grid research projects as part of the Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium announced last week by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Moniz released a blueprint for modernizing the grid, which is built on its Grid Modernization Initiative, an ongoing effort that reflects the Obama Administration’s commitment to improving the resiliency, reliability and security of the nation’s electricity delivery system. 

The Grid Modernization Initiative represents a comprehensive Department of Energy (DOE) effort to help shape the future of the nation’s grid and solve the challenges of integrating conventional and renewable sources with energy storage and smart buildings, while ensuring that the grid is resilient and secure to withstand growing cybersecurity and climate challenges.

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The Lab Report is a weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for the content in the links below.