Materials Science and Engineering at the National Laboratories: A Perspective from Industry
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Materials Science and Engineering at the National Laboratories A Perspective from Industry R.A. Laudise The DOE-funded multipurpose National Laboratories have annual budgets in excess of $3 billion and a substantial fraction of their work is devoted to materials research and engineering. Indeed, in the aggregate, the National Laboratories together consume a significant fraction of U.S. Department of Energy monies spent annually on materials science. In terms of staff and equipment, they are a national treasure. The defense-oriented National Laboratories have provided the materials understanding, the new materials required for demanding environments, and the extreme reliability essential for U.S. nuclear credibility. Their response to their past mission and the need to continue this mission in materials is, or ought to be, unquestioned.
ries. The newly emerging missions have significant materials science and engineering content. However, the excellent quality of the human resources and the magnitude of the financial resources expended should motivate continued efforts to improve mission focus. The words of the Packard Report are still applicable: ".. .the clearer a laboratory's missions are, the better the performance will be....missions must be consistent with the laboratory's existing strengths and expertise ....missions of the Federal laboratories [should] be defined to encourage cooperation rather than competition with industry and universities...." With the above in mind, it is appropriate to ask two questions: What should National Laboratory staff and management do to ensure the success and survival of their materials activities? What can materials scientist outside the laboratories do to help? The following is more an agenda for discussion than any claim to pat answers.
tract technological value from the National Laboratories' science, and it will be necessary for the laboratories to modify their internal structures when appropriate. However, it is essentialtoremember that in terms of the National Laboratories, useful technology is only a small amount of icing on a much larger scientific cake; science is where we should focus our major attention for mission improvement. The proper activity for each National Laboratory is to contribute the highest quality science to the information base pertinent to its mission. A particular laboratory's mission and the part of the knowledge base to be enlarged should be chosen to be vital to nationally prioritized technological directions. Appropriate technology activities should be carried on in the National Laboratories to assure relevant communication with putative customers and to decrease the impedance mismatch between science and engineering applications.
...science is where we should focus our major attention for mission improvement.
That part of the knowledge base chosen for enhancement should be an area where present university and private sector industrial research is unable or unlikely to provide the needed information. This is all easy to say, but picking a pa
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