Y-12 Receives Two R&D 100 Awards
Y-12 Receives Two R&D 100 Awards
Tues, 17 July 2007
Engineers at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y‑12 National Security Complex have won two R&D 100 Awards.
The awards are presented annually by R&D Magazine in recognition of the year’s most significant technological innovations. Y‑12 received the 2007 awards for its Rapid Deployment Shelter System (RDSS) and Personal Annunciation Device (PAD).
“We are very honored by this national recognition of our engineering and design capability. It means a lot to have a project that demonstrates your capabilities and expertise chosen from among the cream of the crop for research and development,” said George Dials, president and general manager of BWXT Y‑12, the company that manages Y‑12 for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Peter Angelo, Ph.D., who led the multi-disciplinary team that developed the PAD said, “This is a great accomplishment for Y‑12. We’re not a research and development lab, so no one really thinks of us as researchers or developers, but Y‑12 has cutting-edge engineering and technology capabilities.”
Since the awards program started in 1963, Y‑12 has received 13 awards.
The RDSS was originally designed as a mobile surgical suite for the U.S. Army but with a few modifications and it could be turned into anything from a command and control center to a logistics or operations center. Y‑12’s Lee Bzorgi was the inventor of the RDSS.
“It is very exciting and gratifying to receive an R&D 100 Award. It took a lot of work. We could not have done it without Y‑12’s great team of craftspeople and engineers,” Bzorgi said.
The 400-square-foot shelter can be easily set up in less than two minutes and offers substantial protection against small-arms, as well as nuclear, biological and chemical contamination, making it an ideal tool for many federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Guard and Reserve units and homeland defense response teams.
Y-12’s additional 2007 winner, the PAD, may very well be the world’s smallest self-arming multiple-use accident notification device. The prototype of the non-nuclear based, radio frequency receiver is about the size of a small pager, but Angelo said it goes beyond existing technology by including radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for accountability. A commercial version of the PAD could be the size of a car key fob and easily worn by anyone over an extended time.
“This is the first time personal wireless technology has been integrated into a safety-related nuclear accident alert system,” said Angelo. “The PAD provides for a personal alert over a much wider area than portable detection devices.”
The PAD can be easily adapted for chemical, biological or any other hazard event where traditional notification means are not adequate, and rapid alert and accountability is required.
While Angelo spearheaded the effort, he said it would not have been possible without the successful collaboration of talents from Y‑12, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the NNSA’s Kansas City Plant. Y‑12 conceived and led the effort, integrating the prototype into existing plant systems; ORNL provided a micropower radio; and Kansas City Plant was responsible for packaging the PAD receiver components.
The R&D 100 Awards will be presented Oct. 18 in Chicago by R&D Magazine.