The National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) Office of Safety, Infrastructure, and Operations (NA-50) awarded three Laboratory teams with NA-50 Excellence Awards. The annual award program was established to recognize teams and individuals for exceptional accomplishments made in support of NA-50 efforts to achieve the NNSA mission.
The Applied Materials and Engineering Area Plan team was recognized for outstanding teamwork in developing an infrastructure area plan through innovative application of real property asset management principles. The team’s efforts resulted in a multiyear, synchronized, multi-investor plan to repurpose, consolidate, build and dispose of equipment and facilities to achieve productivity more quickly than alternative approaches can. The award’s recipients are held up as an example for other NNSA sites.
The Creation of the Cooling and Heating Asset Management Program team received the award for extraordinary efforts in developing an innovative contract instrument that allows, for the first time, rapid evaluation, design, and construction delivery of heating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to all eight NNSA sites. In less than two years, the recipients established a comprehensive master task agreement and process for the program. Their efforts greatly reduced mission risks, costs, and schedule in addressing HVAC issues NNSA-wide.
The Injury-Free Construction Delivery team was recognized for outstanding teamwork and dedication in safely executing $60 million of construction projects at Livermore in FY 2017 without a single worker injury. This track record was achieved while scaling up construction work from only $10 million in FY 2013.
Fady Najjar, a design physicist at Lawrence Livermore, has been elected a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Najjar was recognized for “significant contributions and innovations in computational techniques for fluid flows, for advances in understanding of high-speed gas particle flows including shock physics, and for advances in simulations of flow fields in solid rocket motors and high-speed reacting flows.”
Najjar has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois and has applied his skill simulating ejecta and fluid dynamics of energetic materials as a design physicist in Livermore’s Weapons and Complex Integration Principal Directorate. During the 22 years Najjar has been an ASME member, he has co-authored more than 40 refereed publications and 30 technical reports and delivered more than 60 presentations at international conferences and technical meetings.
Less than 4 percent of ASME’s 91,078 members are fellows. Najjar’s nomination was sponsored by his former Ph.D. adviser from the University of Illinois, Surya Vanka, who also is an ASME fellow, and was supported by three nomination letters.