In 1993, Sandia National Laboratories and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. signed an agreement to collaborate on research to help develop technologies used by the Akron, Ohio-based tire company. Thirty years later, researchers at the national laboratories put together a computer model to simulate tire noise in electric vehicles — the latest work in the two organizations' three-decade-long partnership.
The agreement signed between the laboratories and Goodyear is called a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, or CRADA. CRADAs allow technologies and research conducted at the laboratories — like the labs' computational simulation technology, which models situations that are difficult to test in the real world — to boost private businesses.
"[Goodyear] would rather not do physical tests if they can do numerical tests," said Gregory Bunting, Ph.D., the technical point of contact for Sandia's partnership with Goodyear. "They would like to do new designs and new capabilities without huge upfront costs, and use all of these capabilities that we've developed historically."
But Goodyear isn't the only company that has relied on research and technology at Sandia for its own development. Technology transfer and partnerships with private businesses are part of the labs' mission, said Joel Sikora, a manager of technology partnership agreements at Sandia.
It's one of the ways, he said, that Sandia can be a boost for New Mexico's economy.
"It excites everybody at the laboratory, the ability to be involved in something that isn't mission related but that they can see in their day-to-day life," Sikora added. "It's a positive for both sides that way."
There are some other laboratory programs that private businesses inside and outside of New Mexico can take advantage of, including CRADAs.
One is the Technology Readiness Gross Receipts initiative, which graduated from a pilot program into a five-year initiative through a bill passed by the state legislature in March 2022. That program, abbreviated to TRGR, helps companies that have existing licenses or work agreements with Sandia or Los Alamos National Laboratories take their technologies to market with up to $150,000 in financial assistance.
Advanced hCMOS Systems, an Albuquerque-based startup formed in early 2022, is one local company that's used the TRGR program. A report on the program notes other New Mexico businesses, such as Build With Robots, mPower Technology Inc. and Pajarito Powder, have participated in the TRGR initiative.
Another is a program for New Mexico small businesses, funded by state gross receipts taxes, that devotes between $20,000 to $40,000 for laboratory researchers to support businesses' needs.
"In talking with my peers at other labs, there are very few programs that I believe are as good, and certainly as mature, as what we have in New Mexico," Sikora said. "So, there are a lot of really great opportunities for small businesses."
Businesses ranging from large companies like Goodyear to nascent startups like Advanced hCMOS Systems can leverage different capabilities and technologies that already exist at the labs, Sikora said.
"We're not here to compete with industry," Sikora said. "We're here because … there are complex problems that no one else is able to solve or require machines or — in the case of Goodyear — very specific physics codes.
"Those don't just exist out in the world, they're very specific things, and oftentimes we've got these capabilities within the laboratories because of the mission programs that we have."
Companies can request to partner with Sandia through forms on the labs' website. Sikora said he and his team receive the requests and then point businesses to the right partners within the labs.
The cross-application of technological and research expertise can be a boon for private businesses — but it can help the labs' own development, too.
"It's a win-win for everyone," Sikora said. "Because we help solve a problem for a company, but it … then helps us, as we're trying to work further on our mission that we've gotten some tangible results of something that's really real and we're able to roll it back into the work that we do."
