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Engineering
Lab team develops first-ever living 3D-printed aneurysm to improve surgical procedures, personalize treatments
Brain aneurysms affect about one in every 50 Americans and can lead to serious medical emergencies, including stroke, brain damage and death if they burst. Existing treatment options are limited and often invasive, and surgical outcomes can vary widely from person to person. But medical practitioners may be able to improve existing treatment methods and develop new…
Research team pairs 3D bioprinting and computer modeling to examine cancer spread in blood vessels
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have paired 3D-printed, living human brain vasculature with advanced computational flow simulations to better understand tumor cell attachment to blood vessels, the first step in secondary tumor formation during cancer metastasis. The unique approach, developed with outside collaborators, lays the foundation for…
Simulations, high-speed videos help researchers see crack formation in 3D-printed tungsten in real time
Boasting the highest melting and boiling points of all known elements, tungsten has become a popular choice for applications involving extreme temperatures, including lightbulb filaments, arc welding, radiation shielding and, more recently, as plasma-facing material in fusion reactors such as the ITER Tokamak. However, tungsten’s inherent brittleness, and the microcracking…
Machine learning model may perfect 3D nanoprinting
Two-photon lithography (TPL) — a widely used 3D nanoprinting technique that uses laser light to create 3D objects — has shown promise in research applications but has yet to achieve widespread industry acceptance due to limitations on large-scale part production and time-intensive setup. Capable of printing nanoscale features at a very high resolution, TPL uses a laser…
Modeling neuronal cultures on 'brain-on-a-chip' devices
For the past several years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and engineers have made significant progress in development of a three-dimensional “brain-on-a-chip” device capable of recording neural activity of human brain cell cultures grown outside the body. Now, LLNL researchers have a way to computationally model the activity and structures of…
Lab, BMI produce FDA-approved emergency ventilator
Following weeks of prototyping, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is partnering with private industry to mass-produce a simple mechanical ventilator developed for COVID-19 patients that has been authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). LLNL and medical device startup company BioMedInnovations (BMI) have reached an agreement…
Lab provides assistance in national swab shortage
In this era of COVID-19, tracking the disease adequately enough to allow state and local officials to lift shelter-in-place orders and return to a semblance of normalcy in the absence of a vaccine will require widespread testing, according to medical experts. However, such extensive testing efforts have been hampered due to a shortage of nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs, the…
Lab devises plan to reduce defects in 3D metal printing
Combining high-fidelity computer simulations with ultra-high-speed X-ray imaging, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have discovered a strategy for reducing or even eliminating defects in parts built through a common, laser-based metal 3D-printing process. In work published by the journal Science, a research team at LLNL, along with collaborators…
LLNL develops ‘stopgap’ ventilator for COVID-19 use
While hospitals across the U.S. faced a possible shortage of mechanical ventilators due to COVID-19, a self-assembled “skunk works” team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) worked tirelessly to prototype a simple ventilator design for quick and easy assembly from available parts. Dubbed the “Novel Emergency Response Ventilator” (NERVe), the design is derived…
HPC4Energy Innovation Program issues special solicitation for American manufacturers
The High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation (HPC4EI) Program, managed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), has issued a special solicitation seeking industry partners to collaborate with the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) national laboratories on projects to improve manufacturing processes. This special solicitation invites members of Manufacturing…
Open for business: NNSA, LLNL celebrate the dedication of new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory
Officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) gathered with elected leaders and industry professionals recently to dedicate and tour the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory, a new collaborative hub intended to spur public-private partnerships. The $10 million, 14,000-square-foot facility, located in the…
Lab researchers develop 3D ‘brain-on-a-chip’ device capable of long-term recording of neural activity
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) engineers and biologists have developed a “brain-on-a-chip” device capable of recording the neural activity of living brain cell cultures in three dimensions, a significant advancement in the realistic modeling of the human brain outside of the body. In a paper published by the journal Lab on a Chip, LLNL researchers report on…
Open for business: NNSA, LLNL celebrate the dedication of new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory
Officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) gathered with elected leaders and industry professionals recently to dedicate and tour the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory, a new collaborative hub intended to spur public-private partnerships. The $10 million, 14,000-square-foot facility, located in the…
Deep learning may provide solution for efficient charging, driving of autonomous electric vehicles
The future of commuter traffic probably looks something like this: ride-hailing companies operating fleets of autonomous electric vehicles alongside an increasing number of semi-autonomous EVs co-piloted by humans, all supported by a large infrastructure of charging stations. This scenario is particularly likely in California, which has committed to reducing carbon…
3D-printed aerogel electrodes boost energy storage
A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists and collaborators from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and Sun Yat-Sen University have developed a new class of aerogel electrodes with a simultaneous boost in energy and power density. The research could be a boon for the energy storage industry. “This is the first example in which we were…
Media advisory: LLNL, NNSA to dedicate new Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory
WHO: Leaders from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), industry partner representatives and Laboratory experts in advanced manufacturing and 3D printing. WHAT: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will host a dedication ceremony and media tour of the Advanced Manufacturing Laboratory (AML), a state-of-the…
LLNL to receive DOE funding for new HPC4EI projects
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced the 12 projects awarded funding under the latest solicitation for the High Performance Computing for Energy Innovation Program (HPC4EI), a public/private collaboration that seeks to leverage DOE’s high performance computing facilities at national labs for industry to improve energy efficiency and streamline manufacturing…
LLNL team studies link between residual stress and mechanical properties of 3D-printed stainless steel
The buildup of microscopic residual stresses that occur during the process of 3D printing metal parts can lead to deformation and even cracking in the part, complicating the printing process and resulting in defects that cause damage and part failure. To develop a strategy for mitigating these tiny stresses, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have…
Lab team reports breakthrough in ultrafast, high-resolution nanoscale 3D printing
While 3D printing at the nanoscale — producing intricate features orders of magnitude smaller than the width of a human hair — has significant potential in industry and commercial applications, wide adoption has been impractical because of the slow speed and low throughput of the most widely used nanoprinting technique, two-photon lithography (TPL). But in the latest issue…
New 3D-printed lattice designs defy conventional wisdom on metamaterials
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have designed a new class of 3D-printed lattice structures that combine lightweight and high stiffness, despite breaking a rule previously thought to be required to exhibit such properties. One of the new structures additionally displays perfectly uniform response to forces in all directions. As described in a paper…
