SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
Complex Transformation
SNL is part of Complex Transformation, a NNSA program for a smaller, safer, more secure, and less expansive nuclear weapons complex to replace the standing complex that is believed to be too old with too many facilities. SNL would be the Center of Excellence for Non-Nuclear Design and Engineering and the Center of Excellence for Major Environmental Testing.
Under Complex Transformation, SNL would be home to the Microelectronics & Engineering Science Applications (MESA) complex as an engineering magnet; major weapons environmental testing with TA-3 and other NM facilities; Energetic Devices R&D with the Explosives Test Facility; and neutron generator design and manufacturing facilities. SNL/California (410 acres) would be transferred to a multi-agency lab.
SNL/New Mexico is currently removing its Category I/II quantities of SNM (special nuclear materials that require the highest level of security) and by the end of 2008 should no longer need Category I/II SNM quantities on a permanent basis. In the mid-1990s, Sandia had approximately 10 kg of Pu-239 and approximately 800 kg of uranium in reactor fuel. NNSA charged Sandia with removing its category 1 and 2 special nuclear material by the end of 2008.
In 2004, the Test Capabilities Revitalization (TCR) began. It is a $110 million, five-year program to revitalize the SNL. Construction began on the Thermal Test Complex and at the Aerial Cable Test site in Manzanito Mountains, located on the eastern part of Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB).
The Thermal Test Complex will be a multi-laboratory, office and test TA-3. It will be used to test full-scale weapon systems indoors. It will have a 7-story, 60-foot diameter test cell, called the FLAME cell, for fire testing. It will also include a central facility with a control room, office space, shop, assembly areas, smaller labs, and test areas. Part of the complex will be the Cross Flow Fire Test Facility, or XTF, a 25-foot-high by 25-foot-wide facility by 84-foot-long that will have a low-speed wind tunnel for testing objects with hazardous components and will have radiant heat test capabilities. Hensel Phelps Construction Co. was awarded the $28 million contract for the Thermal Test Complex.
The revitalization Aerial Cable Site, on part of the Coyote Test Field is an $8 million project to be completed by Summit Construction Inc. The site will be improved to handle pull-down and gravity drop tests and simulated flights along a cable. Currently the site has two large cables going across a canyon that allows objects to be raised to 600 feet and then dropped. In a pull-down test, the object is attached to a rocket on a rail that is fired into a catch basin, pulling the object at speeds up to 1,100 feet per second. The project will add new cable systems, anchors, pulleys, control winches, and a rocket sled catch box. A 4, 980-square-foot control building will house control room equipment, storage rooms, and assembly areas for test objects. The building will also be linked with analytical facilities in TA-3.
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