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Sandia National Laboratories

🇺🇸 Albuquerque, US · Active

Sandia National Laboratories is one of the three research and development laboratories of the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, established in 1949 and headquartered at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a second site in Livermore, California. It is federally owned and run by a Honeywell subsidiary, National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia. For fusion it operates the Z Pulsed Power Facility (the Z machine), which discharges enormous electrical currents in about 100 nanoseconds to crush a target, a technique called a Z-pinch. Z is used for weapons physics, for testing materials at extreme pressure and temperature, and for inertial fusion research, particularly magnetized liner inertial fusion (MagLIF), in which a magnetised fuel-filled metal tube is imploded.

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Sector
Fusion
Technology
Z-pinch
Role
National laboratory, Operator

It is the operator of record for Annular Core Research Reactor (operating) and Z Machine (operating).

Terms

Z-pinch
A current driven straight through a plasma column, whose own magnetic field squeezes it inward. Long set aside as unstable; sheared-flow stabilisation, studied at the University of Washington and pursued commercially by Zap Energy, renewed work on it.

Design values

Design values for devices operated by Sandia National Laboratories. These are what a machine was built to do, not results.
DeviceParameterValueUnitStatus
Annular Core Research ReactorThermal capacity (rated)2.4MWdesign valueclaimed

Devices

Annular Core Research ReactorWater-cooledOperating1 figure on recordZ MachineZ-pinchOperatingNo figures yet

People

  • Laura McGillLaboratories Director
  • David GibsonDeputy Laboratories Director and Chief Operating Officer
  • Rita GonzalesDeputy Laboratories Director, Nuclear Deterrence & Science, and Chief Technology Officer
  • Deborah FrinckeDeputy Laboratories Director, Integrated Security Missions
  • Brad A. BoswellAssociate Labs Director, Nuclear Deterrence Modernization & Stockpile Systems, and Chief Engineer for Nuclear Weapons
  • Brian E. CarterExecutive Director and Chief Human Resources Officer
  • William S. Elias IIExecutive Director, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary of NTESS, LLC
  • Steve GirrensAssociate Labs Director, Nuclear Deterrence Components & Production
  • Jeff HeathAssociate Laboratories Director, Infrastructure Operations
  • Justine JohannesAssociate Laboratories Director, Global Security
  • Douglas B. KotheAssociate Labs Director, Advanced Science and Technology, and Chief Research Officer
  • Josh ParsonsAssociate Labs Director, Mission Services
  • Toby TownsendAssociate Laboratories Director, Deterrence, Science & Energy
  • John ZepperExecutive Director, Information & Security Engineering, and Chief Information Officer

Related companies

Sources