Established in 1959 to develop nuclear space propulsion technologies for the government, the lab was located, for most of its history, in the paradoxically small town of "Large" along Pa. Rte 51, about 13 miles (21 km) south of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA.
Naval Academy graduate John W. Simpson headed the team with Cornell University physicist Sidney Krasik and Technical Director Frank Cotter as founding members.
[2] WANL's origins can be traced to 1959 when a dozen engineers and technical specialists from Bettis set up a lab in nearby Whitehall, Pa., for the purpose of bidding on government research and development contracts.
Working in the switchgear division of Westinghouse's East Pittsburgh plant, Simpson helped develop the electric switchboards that could survive the extreme impacts experienced by naval vessels in the Pacific Theater during World War II.
Promoted the next year to general manager of the Bettis Laboratory, he was elected a Westinghouse vice president in 1958 and by 1959 was eager to take on the new challenge of developing nuclear rocket engines to enable the exploration of the solar system.
The core consisted of clusters of hexagonal graphite fuel elements containing pyrographite-coated beads of uranium pellets coated with niobium carbide to prevent corrosion by exposure to the hydrogen propellant.
The first proof of concept test of an assembled Westinghouse-Aerojet rocket engine (NRX-A2) was conducted at Jackass Flats, Nevada on September 24, 1964 that provided six minutes of continuous operation.
However, work on the project helped achieve major milestones in developing high-temperature/high-strength materials technology, which finds application in aerospace and a myriad of private-sector industries.
[4] While other innovative projects (such as development of a fully implantable, self-contained, nuclear-powered artificial heart[5]) were pursued into the mid-1970s, WANL ceased operations as a formal Westinghouse division shortly thereafter.
Among AESD's successes was the winning site and conceptual design proposal for the Solar Total Energy Project (STEP) in Shenandoah [now part of Newnan], Coweta County, Georgia, 35 miles (56 km) south of Atlanta along I-85.
It consisted of 114 tracking parabolic-dish collectors (7 m dia), which heated a transfer fluid that produced high-pressure steam for generating electricity that was fed to an adjacent knitwear factory owned and operated by Bleyle of Germany.
During the time that AESD was active, the Large site also housed the Westinghouse Fusion Power Systems Department (FPSD), which had a role in development and startup of the Tokamak Reactor at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in 1982.
ACCD operated a coal gasification process demonstration unit (PDU), which was funded by DoE in the early 1970s, and conducted related research projects.
ARD had the development contract for the planned Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) project at Clinch River, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
In 1994, a group of former employees at the site formed Pittsburgh Materials Technology Inc. (PMTI)[12] to build upon the capabilities developed by Westinghouse, including advanced refractory metal alloys.