Los Alamos National Laboratory

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Triad National Security, LLC

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legal form LLC
founding 1996
Seat Greenfield (Indiana) United StatesUnited StatesUnited States 
management Thom Mason
Number of employees > 6000
Website [1]
Status: 2019

LANL (1995)

The Los Alamos National Laboratory ( LANL , previously Los Alamos Laboratory and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory ) is an American research institution focusing on nuclear research in Los Alamos (New Mexico) . The first atomic bomb was developed there during the Manhattan Project . Parts of the area are still a military exclusion zone .

The LANL has a total of over 6000 employees and is home to one of the largest institutes for theoretical research in the world. It is remote about 60 km northwest of Santa Fe , New Mexico, on a plateau about 2,500 m above sea level. Triad National Security , LLC has been the operator since November 1, 2018 . Basic research is carried out in the fields of physics , chemistry , biology and mathematics , among other things .

Kiwi-A reactor. In the 1960s, the institute experimented with nuclear rocket propulsion.

administration

Like the SNL and LLNL , the LANL is under the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) of the United States Department of Energy . From its inception through 2005, the LANL was operated directly by the University of California. The operation has been carried out by a private service provider since 2005. From 2005 on, this was Los Alamos National Security LLC , a consortium made up of the University of California , the Bechtel Corporation , BWXT Government Group and AECOM . Since November 2018, the laboratory has had a new operating company, Triad National Security LLC, in which the University of California, Texas A&M University and the Battelle Institute , among others , are involved.

Tens of thousands of barrels with radioactive waste are stored on the site.

The plutonium facility PF-4 of the LANL, a central facility of the stockpile stewardship program for the preservation of the existing nuclear weapons potential in the USA, has been closed since 2014 due to inadequate risk management in the handling of fissile material.

history

It was founded as Site Y of the Manhattan Project in 1943.

In the 1940s and 1950s, three nuclear accidents with fatal consequences occurred in Los Alamos , two of them with the same plutonium core, the so-called demon core ( INES : 4). The third criticality accident concerned the improper handling of a liquid containing plutonium. This accident led to the shift in the United States from manual labor to the use of manipulators when working with critical masses .

In December 1965, the laboratory buildings were granted National Historic Landmark status. In October 1966, they were entered as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places . In 1972 in Los Alamos the most powerful proton linear accelerator at the time was put into operation in the LAMPF (Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility) (final energy 800 M eV at a repetition rate of 120 per second and an average current of 1 m A ), which is mainly used for nuclear physics investigations were carried out. At the same time, the WNR (Weapons Neutron Research) facility was built, which made intensive flows of high-energy neutrons available for the investigation of nuclear bomb physics. Both systems have been integrated in the LANSCE (Los Alamos Neutron Science Center) since the 1990s, which provides a spallation neutron source for many areas of application. From 1993 to 1998, the LSND experiment on neutrino oscillation took place here.

On June 8, 2008, the world's fastest supercomputer at the time, the IBM Roadrunner, went into operation there.

On June 27, 2011, the facility was closed due to bush fires, and the city itself was evacuated.

In August 2011 it was announced that a group of researchers at the laboratory had generated the world's strongest magnetic field emanating from a non-self-destructive magnet . On August 18, they broke the world record previously held by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf with 92.5 Tesla and were able to increase it to 97.4 Tesla the following day.

Directors

Web links

Commons : Los Alamos National Laboratory  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.triadns.org/
  2. ↑ https://www.bloomberg.com/profiles/companies/0721940D:US-triad-llc
  3. ↑ https://www.lanl.gov/about/leadership-governance/director.php
  4. ↑ https://www.lanl.gov/discover/news-release-archive/2018/November/1101-triad-takes-the-helm.php
  5. ↑ https://www.triadns.org/
  6. ↑ Fig. 9, Conceptual Design of Gas-core Nuclear Propulsion System in: Ryan McLaren, M. Ragheb: Nuclear propulsion choices for space exploration . 1st International Nuclear & Renewable Energy Conference (INREC), 2010, doi: 10.1109 / INREC.2010.5462568
  7. ↑ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, for the US Department of Energy: Los Alamos National Security, LLC. Retrieved September 29, 2018 .
  8. ↑ NNSA awards Los Alamos National Laboratory Management & Operating Contract. Retrieved September 29, 2018 .
  9. ↑ The Center for Public Integrity, Patrick Malone: Repeated safety lapses hobble Los Alamos National Laboratory's work on the cores of US nuclear warheads . Science 356, 2017, doi: 10.1126 / science.aan7026 .
  10. ↑ https://www.lanl.gov/about/history-innovation/index.php
  11. ^ The Atomic Heritage Foundation Accidents in the Manhattan Project
  12. ^ NN: The Cecil Kelley Criticality Accident. (PDF; 20 kb) In: Los Alamos Science. Necia Grant Cooper, 1995, pp. 250-251 , accessed January 15, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: New Mexico. National Park Service , accessed August 17, 2019.
  14. ↑ Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed November 14, 2019.
  15. ↑ Flames threaten US nuclear laboratory. Report at spiegel.de from June 27, 2011.
  16. ↑ Bush fires in Los Alamos continue to spread. ( Memento from July 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Message at tagesschau.de from July 2, 2011.
  17. ↑ James E. Rickman: Los Alamos achieves world record pulsed magnetic field. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory moves closer to 100-tesla mark. ( Memento from September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) News from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) from August 23, 2011.

Coordinates: 35 ° 52 ′ 33 "  N , 106 ° 19 ′ 22.2"  W.