During 2009-2011, LANL hosted a series of external community workshops in several subject areas to identify Decadal Challenges.

Decadal Challenges for Predicting and Controlling Materials Performance in Extremes (PDF)

The performance of materials in extreme environments is central to a number of national security challenges, including especially the need for sustainable energy solutions. From fission & fusion energy to nuclear weapons to a broad suite of renewable challenges, a science-based approach to certifying materials performance for extended lifetimes is needed. The need to develop materials that perform in new and more extreme environments is also acute. Put simply, we lack sufficient confidence in the materials we have to confidently predict or extend their lifetime. Materials often fail at one tenth or less of their intrinsic limit and we do not know why.

Research Needs for Material Mixing at Extremes

Material Mixing underpins modern technologies and science that range from relatively benign and slow effects in climate, to reactive and fast energy release in Inertial Confinement Fusion. Stating such a broad range can miss the diversity of applications in between that include combustion, supersonic flows, explosions, spray development, and environmental flows. At the heart of the present material mixing workshop is fluid flow, and its ability to mix materials often (but not always) by turbulence.

21st Century Needs and Challenges of Compression Science

The influence that compression science has had on national security science and its manifestation through discovery and application cannot be overstated. In addition to supporting the certification of our nuclear stockpile in the absence of underground testing and a broad spectrum of engineering and defense applications, compression science has altered our view of the material world around us. The discovery of unexpected physical and chemical phenomena and new materials through the application of compression science techniques has led to a new and refined understanding of the nature of chemical bonding in extreme environments.

Research Needs and Opportunities for Characterization of Activated Samples at Neutron and X-Ray Facilities

September 20-22, 2009, a workshop entitled Research Needs and Opportunities for Characterization of Activated Samples at X-Ray and Neutron User Facilities, sponsored by Los Alamos National Laboratory, was held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The workshop was motivated by the potential that light and neutron sources have to proffer advances in our understanding of radiation damage and to validate new science-based materials performance models. The charge of the workshop addressed measurement needs, current activity, and opportunities that can be realized in the next five years and insights that could be realized by new diagnostics and experimental methods. This report outlines the content and discussion of the workshop.

Structural Materials Under Extreme Conditions

Los Alamos Lab is in the process of holding a series of focused workshops designed to engage the external scientific community and help define the facilities and capabilities to be incorporated into MaRIE. A three-day workshop focused on structural materials was held July 29-31, 2009 at LANL. The purpose of the workshop was to assess future needs in structural materials applications and supporting research, and to identify the developments and innovation necessary in the next ~10 years.

Research Frontiers and Capability Gaps for Controlling and Designing Functional Materials

Most advances in materials have focused on an observation approach that involves detailed characterization of a new material followed by integration of the material into applications based on the material properties. These properties are further tuned by changes in the processing conditions via a trial and error effort. The notion of predicting the properties of a material and systematically controlling the composition, defects and interfaces is typically viewed as something far off in the future. One exception that stands out is in the computer industry where the systematic characterization, and controlled manipulation of both purity and interfaces at ever increasingly finer resolution has lead to material advances and performance capabilities that not long ago would have been viewed by most people as impossible.

MaRIE Workshops and Reports

MaRIE Workshops and Reports