REPORT 1996

or many years Berkeley Lab has formed partnerships to share its advances in industrial technology, energy efficiency, health, environmental remediation, science education and more. In the past three years technology transfer efforts have helped secure more than 90 partnerships between the Lab and industry.

Streamlines emanating from a virtual well show a three-dimensional oil flux. Berkeley Lab's partnership with British Petroleum and Western Atlas Software aims to improve tools for reservoir simulation.

Many of the technologies developed here have helped to fuel the nation's economy, reducing energy costs and dependence on foreign oil, serving as a resource to solve health and environmental problems, and helping to create new businesses.

Currently, Berkeley Lab has 50 Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) worth $42 million, funded through DOE's Energy Research Laboratory Technology Transfer (ERLTT) program. Several of these ERLTT awards have far- reaching potential for the American public.

In industry, Berkeley Lab has joined forces with Rouge Steel (Dearborn, Michigan) to improve the formability and finish of electrogalvanized sheet steel, the material used to create the outside bodies of most automobiles. The formability and painted finish of the steel play a major role in body styling and the visual appeal of the car, both factors which can have significant effects on car sales. Faced with fierce competition from Japanese and European companies, Rouge Steel sought to develop a way to produce high quality sheet steel with optimal formability and finish. Collaborating with engineers at the Ford Motor Company, Berkeley Lab researchers conducted friction and paintability tests to develop criteria for the sheet surface profile, and work has now moved into the demonstration phase. The successful completion of this research will benefit both the domestic steel and automotive industries.

As part of the Advanced Computational Technology Initiative (ACTI), Berkeley Lab is working with BP Exploration (United Kingdom) and Western Atlas Software (Houston, Texas) to improve tools for flux, visualization, reservoir simulations, and user interfaces to enhance production in its oil reservoirs. In order to gain understanding of a reservoir, engineers must simulate the reservoir's active forces, particularly its flow and flux and its porosity. To help provide easily understood images, researchers at Berkeley Lab have implemented experimental prototype algorithms for visualization of flux and flow data. Some of these techniques are being transferred to the commercial sector, and will be available as a vendor-supported product in 1996.

This drawing show the frame or gantry of the beam positioning system for the Northeast Proton Therapy Center now under construction at Massachusetts General Hospital. With a patient lying flat inside the gantry, magnets mounted on the outer frame will precisely direct an incoming proton beam onto a tumor. This system is being designed and built under a CRADA between Berkeley Lab and General Atomics Corporation of San Diego, California.

In the interest of advancing the treatment of human cancer, Berkeley Lab and General Atomics Corporation (San Diego, California) have signed a CRADA which aims to integrate individual proton therapy components into a high precision medical accelerator facility. Proton therapy is one of the new additions to the arsenal of cancer treatments, and there are a number of hospital-based medical accelerator facilities in various planning stages. The treatment of cancer using heavy charged particles was pioneered at Berkeley Lab, and the Lab continues to be recognized as a world leader in the field. The CRADA strengthens Berkeley Lab's activities in medical accelerators, and provides General Atomics with the expertise and technical know-how to establish a leadership position in the field of proton therapy.

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