Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Site 300
Site 300 of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is located in northern California,
approximately 15 miles southeast of the Laboratory's Main Site and 10 miles southwest of the City
of Tracy. The site occupies 11 square miles. Site 300 was purchased from local ranchers in the 1950s. Originally, Site 300 was called Site 3. Site 1 was the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL), and
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was designated Site 2. LLNL Site 300 is about 15
miles southeast of the Livermore main site. Many years ago, LLNL and LBL were known as the
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, after the founder Ernest O. Lawrence (Nobel prize winner and
inventor of the cyclotron).
The site's former and current mission is the research and testing of non-nuclear high-explosive components for the Department of Energy nuclear weapons program. Past operations involving the processing, testing, and deactivation of explosive materials have resulted in soil and ground water contamination at the site. Several plumes of contamination were also detected in ground water offsite. In 1990, Site 300 was placed on the Environmental Protection Agency National Priorities List.
Site 300 Chemical Processing Facilities
These facilities consist of laboratories for processing energetic materials and components. Three types of HE are formu- lated at Site 300: plastic bonded, extrusion cast explosive, and paste.
Building 825 is an explosive processing facility.
Building 826 is used for formulating small quantities of explosives and formulation work on extrudable (paste or cured) explosives.
The Building 827 complex is the primary facility used for HE formulation. The complex consists of five structures:
- 827A contains the control room used to direct remote HE operations.
- 827B contains rooms for a conventional machine shop and one to perform small-scale inert assembly work.
- 827C is used for large-scale explosive formulation and for mixing, paste extrusion, and filtering of HE.
- 827D is used for scaling up material synthesized at the HE activity and for mixing and casting lower viscosity extrudable explosives.
- 827E is used for pressing, melting, and casting HE.
Site 300 - Mechanical Processing Facilities
Site 300 mechanical processing facilities prepare explosive test assemblies. They include:
- Building 805, used for office work, metal machining, and explosives waste handling and storage
- Building 806, the primary machining area for making complex HE shapes
- Building 807, a backup machining facility that contains a remotely operated lathe
- Building 809, which makes complex HE shapes and is also used for radiographic inspection of HE components
- Building 810, used to assemble HE parts in preparation for testing
- The Building 817 complex, built in the 1960s, which has two operating cells and performs isostatic pressing of HE charges
- Building 823, used as needed, and has a 9 MeV x-ray machine for radiography
- Building 829, a burn facility with 3 open pits and an iron horse to treat waste HE and HE residue (will shut down when Building 845 becomes operational)
- Building 845, an old firing facility that will be modified to become the new explosive waste treatment facility (EWTF). Several explosive storage magazines have been converted to waste storage to support this process in accordance with a RCRA permit. The permit for the new EWTF is expected in spring 1997 from the State of California.
Site 300 Firing Facilities
The Site 300 Firing Facilities are used for "hydrodynamic testing" of HE. The term hydrodynamic testing refers to the fact that when HE is detonated, such high pressures are produced that solid materials (even when not melted) flow like fluids. The firing facilities capture the dynamics of material in motion at ultrahigh speeds using x-ray and electro-optic pictures. Firing tests are run from control bunkers associated with each firing facility. There are observation posts near the firing facilities to spot people, animals, aircraft, and other things that might interfere with testing. Although the firing facilities continue to be principally used for nuclear weapons research, tests of conventional weapons are also conducted. Facility improvements have focused on adding capabilities to record test data (flash x-ray machines, high speed optical cameras, the gamma ray camera, and multi-beam laser velocimeter.
Building 801, built in the early 1950s, supports explosives tests for the nuclear weapons program. This facility has a flash x-ray for recording HE detonation tests. This one-of-a-kind machine produces high-resolution x-ray pictures of high density objects. It can penetrate more than a foot of steel, and its digital imaging camera can record the material structure of an explosively driven implosion. In 1985, Livermore completed the Bunker 801 project at Site 300. The newly refurbished bunker became a fully modernized hydrodynamic test facility to gather data crucial for assessing the operation of a nuclear weapon’s primary stage (a pit). Until project completion, weapon designers relied largely on technologies from the 1960s for much of their hydrodynamics experimentation. After the upgrade, Bunker 801 contained the most modern diagnostics available, including the Flash X Ray (FXR) machine. Continual upgrades to Bunker 801 since 1985 have kept the facility equipped with the most modern capabilities. For example, in the 1990s, the beam quality of the FXR was improved, and a gamma-ray camera system was installed—70 times more sensitive than the radiographic film it replaced. With these upgrades, in 1998 the first “core punch” experiments were carried out on mock pits for two stockpiled weapons—the W76 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead and the B83 strategic bomb.
Building 812 is a backup firing facility that is also used for storage.
Building 851 supports explosives tests, including most of the experiments for the advanced conventional weapons program. It has the same type of diagnostic capabilities as Building 801, and includes the new multi-beam velocity systems.
Building 850 is a backup firing facility also used for camera repair.
A Contained Firing Facility is a permanent, state-of-the-art firing chamber constructed on the site of Building 801's present open-air firing table. About 2,500 square meters will be added to Building 801, also the site of LLNL's recently upgraded 18-megaelectron-volt flash x-ray (FXR) machine. The heart of the CFF is the firing chamber. Slightly larger than half a small gymnasium (16 by 18 meters and 10 meters high), the firing chamber will contain the blast overpressure and debris from detonations of up to 60 kilograms (kg) of cased explosive charges. The inside surfaces of the chamber will be protected from shrapnel traveling as fast as 1.5 kilometers per second with 38-millimeter-thick mild steel plates. To permit repetitive firings, all main structural elements of the firing chamber are required to remain elastic when subjected to blast. Detonations will be conducted above a 150-millimeter-thick steel firing surface (the shot anvil) embedded in the floor. All main structural elements of the firing chamber must be able to withstand repetitive firing as well as meet design safety standards. These criteria require the structure to withstand a 94-kg TNT blast, which is the equivalent to 60 kg of high explosives. During the testing phase of the project, "overtests" will be run using 75 kg of high explosives to assure that the building can withstand planned 60-kg detonations. A key aspect of the new facility is that the rectangular concrete firing chamber will be made with low-cost, conventional reinforcement, as opposed to the labor-intensive, laced reinforcement commonly found in many blast-resistant structures. From a materials standpoint, a spherical chamber shape would be more blast efficient, but a slightly heavier, rectangular shape is cheaper to construct, provides easier and more desirable setup and working surfaces, and encompasses existing diagnostic systems. The thickness of the reinforced concrete walls, ceiling, and floor of the chamber will be 1.2, 1.4, and 1.8 m, respectively.
Site 300 Materials Management Facilities
The materials management facilities have overall control of receiving, shipping, storage, and accountability of HE. About 50,000 pounds of HE is stored in Site 300 magazines. Most of this HE is classified as "1.1" (mass detonating high explosive). The major problem with materials management operations is that Site 300 is running out of magazine storage due to siting problems. In addition, a good deal of the HE is more than 20 years old and has lost its Department of Transportation shipping classification. Site 300 management is developing a master plan for future siting of magazines and other facilities.
Building 818, a staging and short term storage area, serves as the central point for HE materials management and site delivery.
Building 824 is currently used for storing medium caliber munitions.
Building 857 is used as a storage magazine.
