High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Y-12 National Security Complex is a United States Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration facility located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Y-12 is managed and operated under contract by B&W Y-12 (formerly called BWXT Y-12), a partnership of Babcock and Wilcox (formerly called BWXT Technologies), a McDermott company, and Bechtel.Y-12 was established during the Manhattan Project to enrich uranium using electromagnetic isotope separation. Its construction began in February 1943, under the management of Stone and Webster. Because of a wartime shortage of copper, the massive electromagnetic coils were made with 14,700 tons of coinage silver from U.S. government vaults at West Point.