Stockpile Stewardship and Management
The DOE Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan
The Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs has led the Department, its three national security laboratories, and other sites in the weapons complex, in the development of the DOE Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan. This long-term plan is a roadmap based on the requirements set forth by the DoD and reflects stringent fiscal realities.The Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan calls for radical changes in the way we do business, both to cut costs and to adjust to new circumstances: fewer weapons, fewer types of weapons, no production of new types of weapons, an aging stockpile, and no nuclear testing. It is organized around three major elements to support a small stockpile of weapons:
- An enhanced surveillance program to understand and predict the effects of aging. An enhanced surveillance program includes efforts to develop a modern nonnuclear experimental data base for stockpiled weapons and to make archival data more accessible and useful to stockpile stewards. It requires an expansion of current surveillance efforts, an active preventive maintenance program, a focused archival program, and strong supporting capabilities in physics, engineering, and chemistry and materials science.
- A small, efficient manufacturing capability to refurbish and replace aging and defective components. Since specific problems that may arise in warheads are difficult to predict, the production facilities of the future must be agile and highly capable, yet affordable. Choices of production technologies will emphasize flexibility and will utilize modern commercial methods wherever possible. Because the stockpile of the future will be much smaller, the focus will be on capability, not capacity.
- A revalidation process--backed by a set of new experimental tools--to support high-confidence assessment and certification when issues about stockpile performance occur. The technical staff at the national security laboratories will need to establish a revalidation process based on independent evaluations and judgments to ensure quality control. As the scientific underpinning of this process, they will have to rely on numerical simulation with advanced computer models and above-ground nonnuclear testing in more sophisticated experimental facilities. Science-based stewardship will have replaced nuclear testing as the means to assure confidence in the stockpile.
DOE's overall plan, which is still being developed, envisions a much smaller overall complex, operating in a more integrated fashion and drawing on the unique strengths of each site. The goal is to cut costs while preserving required capabilities. It will take over a decade to make the transformation to the very different configuration attuned to the needs of the post-Cold War world. It is anticipated that the three laboratories will take on a more challenging and diverse set of long-term roles as the production complex is further reduced.
Much consolidation has already occurred to achieve a leaner program. We have eliminated unnecessarily redundant facilities and capabilities amongst the laboratories. As further steps to consolidate are taken as part of the plan, necessary capabilities and skills must be preserved, in part by making efficient use of existing investments in facilities and people. For example, I anticipate the process will eventually lead to closing the plutonium facility at LLNL at an annual savings of $10 million but a cost of perhaps $65 million for decontamination and decommissioning. It is incumbent on all of the laboratories to seek further consolidation consistent with the needs of the program.
The LLNL role in the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan
LLNL has worked closely with Defense Programs to develop the DOE Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, and we are highly supportive of their efforts to create the necessary scientific basis for stewardship in an era of no nuclear testing. We also agree with their efforts to manage the laboratories as a "diversified research system"--as recommended by the recent US General Accounting Office report National Laboratories Need Clearer Missions and Better Management. Livermore's core nuclear weapons program is a factor of two smaller than it was at the end of the Cold War. However, as a leaner element of the integrated program, we have sharpened our focus. We have preserved the core competencies necessary to support our broad national security mission, attend to LLNL-developed weapons in the stockpile or being dismantled, and operate several special user facilities. These include the High Explosives Applications Facility (HEAF), the Nova laser facility, and the Flash X-Ray facility at Site 300. In addition, we operate a number of smaller science and engineering facilities that provide unique capabilities to the program.Stockpile Responsibilities. Dismantlement, which will continue past the end of the decade, involves many systems for which Livermore retains technical responsibility. In particular, dismantlement of the W48 and W79 artillery projectiles, the W55 SUBROC, the W56 and W62 ICBM warheads, the W68 SLBM warheads, and the W71 ABM warheads require significant attention to ensure safe and timely dismantlement and disposition of excess materials.
Livermore's responsibilities for the enduring stockpile include the B83 bomb, the W84 cruise missile and the W87 ICBM warhead. These are the only systems in the inventory with all the modern safety features, and they are expected to endure past their originally anticipated lifetimes. Significant effort is being expended on the surveillance, maintenance, and selective refurbishment of these systems.
As part of our archiving program, we are paying particular attention to these stockpile systems. In addition to archiving past data, we are developing a modern experimental database and computational understanding. Many of the nonnuclear experiments on the systems were done 10-15 years ago. Today, much better techniques are available: penetrating radiography with enhanced sensitivity from a gamma-ray camera, high speed laser illuminated photography, and multi-beam Fabry-Perot velocity measurements. These new data and the understanding which results will form the basis of a joint LLNL/LANL revalidation of the safety, security and reliability of these important systems.
Surveillance. We are also working to improve the "science" of enhanced surveillance so that we can better understand and predict the effects of aging on weapons. These efforts are the key to an affordable manufacturing capability because they enable a more systematic refurbishment and "preventative maintenance" program rather than an expensive and high-production-rate replacement program when aging effects are found. Livermore is in the process of establishing an enhanced materials database (using surveillance and dismantlement data) and developing sophisticated computational techniques to better analyze these data. In addition, we are applying advanced techniques like scanning tunneling microscopes (STM) and atomic force microscopes (AFM) to look at the effects of corrosion on an atomistic level. Other advanced sensors and non-destructive techniques will attempt to evaluate weapon components in a more detailed and fundamental way.
Manufacturing. LLNL is working on several technologies to provide cost effective manufacturing capability to replace and refurbish aging weapon components. We are responsible for developing a pit-reuse capability which would permit the reuse of old plutonium components if necessary to fix a problem in the stockpile. In addition, we are developing a precision casting process for plutonium. It would significantly reduce costs and the waste generated. This process, which would be transferred to LANL for full implementation, can be applied to rebuild pits destroyed in the current surveillance program. We are also developing precision casting and spin-forming techniques to replace the current methods of rebuilding uranium parts destroyed in the surveillance program. These efforts draw on the uranium capability developed in the LLNL Uranium AVLIS program.
We are also making effective of use of Defense Programs' Technology Transfer Program to pursue technologies and capabilities needed for nuclear weapons manufacturing with industry. Our laser technology development with the US auto industry, for example, is directly relevant to the welding, drilling, and trimming technologies required for production of special-nuclear-materials parts with minimum waste generation. Other efforts are aimed at improved nondestructive evaluation, reduced waste in manufacturing, better quality control, and more reliable microelectronics.
Science-Based Assessment and Certification. Decisions about the stockpile must be grounded in experimental reality and simulated successfully by detailed computer models. At LLNL we operate state-of-the-art experimental facilities for the integrated complex, including the High Explosives Applications Facility (HEAF), the Flash X-Ray facility at Site 300, and the Nova laser system. Additional tools are needed because the technical staff will not be able to rely on nuclear testing in the future. They will have to understand the science of nuclear weapon performance to assure the safety, security, and reliability of the enduring nuclear stockpile.
The FY 1996 Defense Programs budget submission includes three new initiatives that are very important to Livermore. These are the National Ignition Facility, the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, and the Contained Firing Facility.
The National Ignition Facility
The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is identified by Victor Reis as being "the most important new facility" in the Defense Programs budget request for FY 1996. A total of $61 million is requested for the NIF for Title I design activities and related operating expenses. The NIF is a cornerstone of the science-based stockpile stewardship program. It is the only facility that will permit well-diagnosed experiments pertinent to fusion and high-energy-density physics processes which occur after the high explosive is detonated. The NIF is also the critical next step in the development of Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) as an environmentally attractive energy source, and it will serve as a user facility for a wide range of fundamental scientific research.The NIF will consist of the laser system and optical components, a target chamber, and computer control system all in an environmentally controlled building. The laser, consisting of 192 beams to deliver 1.8 million joules and "ignite" small fusion targets, will be the world's largest optical instrument. Its construction will allow America to retain world leadership in ICF. It will advance US high technology industries such as those in optics, lasers, materials, high-speed instrumentation, semiconductors, and precision manufacturing. Because of this impact, the NIF has been endorsed by every major laser and optics industrial organization. If there are no delays, system startup will be in late 2002.
A laser ignition facility was strongly recommended by the National Academy of Sciences and the DOE Fusion Policy Advisory Committee in their 1990 reports. More recently, the DOE ICF Advisory Committee and the JASON Review Committee, a prestigious academic-based DoD scientific advisory panel, endorsed the NIF. In their July 1994 report, the JASONs said that "The NIF is without question the most scientifically valuable of the programs proposed for the science-based stockpile stewardship program." The NIF was also endorsed by the Galvin Task Force.
In October 1994, Secretary O'Leary announced her approval of Key Decision 1 for the NIF. This followed completion of the Conceptual Design Report in April 1994 and the successful demonstration of Beamlet (a full-scale prototype of a NIF beam). Secretary O'Leary also established a Key Decision 1 Prime process whose goal is to evaluate the consistency of the facility with US arms control and nonproliferation objectives. This is to be completed by August 1995.
I expect the Key Decision 1 Prime outcome to be positive because the pursuit of ICF is very international--including a substantial effort in Japan--and should have no impact on extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or establishment of a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban. The key physical concepts are unclassified and much of the research at the Nova ICF facility at Livermore is conducted in the open with participation by scientists from throughout the world. The NIF will be an even stronger draw for international research projects.
As a user facility the NIF will support research on:
- National Security. The NIF will provide access to physics regimes of interest in nuclear weapons. Scientists from all the national security laboratories will be able to obtain nuclear-weapon-related physics data, particularly in the area of fusion and the high-energy-density physics which occurs after the high explosive is detonated for comparison with advanced numerical simulations. These include high-quality opacity data for partially ionized materials, valuable information about the mixing of layers of different materials during implosion, and data that can help us assess the impact of cracks and other abnormalities on weapon performance. The NIF will not enable LLNL or LANL to design new weapons per se, but it will help us evaluate issues for existing designs and improve and test computational models for those designs.
- Fusion Energy. The NIF is an essential element in the program for the development of inertial fusion energy for civilian power production. If net fusion energy gain is demonstrated, as anticipated, the NIF will constitute the crucial step towards the ultimate goal of providing energy security for the US in the 21st century.
- Science and Technology. The NIF will produce conditions in matter similar to those found at the center of the sun and other stars. New, well-characterized, high-energy-density regimes will be routinely accessible in the laboratory for the first time. The NIF will advance scientific and technical fields such as astrophysical sciences, plasma physics, atomic and radiative physics, hydrodynamics, materials science, advanced coherent and incoherent x-ray sources, nonlinear optics, and computational physics. Scientific progress in those fields will, in turn, provide enhanced understanding of the physical conditions in nuclear weapons.
The need for the NIF is independent of any siting decisions. However, Secretary O'Leary has voiced her preference for Livermore. LLNL is the natural siting choice because of the large contribution we have made to the advancement of ICF and the development of the laser system to be part of the NIF. LLNL has built six large laser systems since 1974 and each has been completed on budget and performed as designed. The facility would greatly benefit from and contribute to LLNL's existing unique capabilities in lasers, and the NIF would play a key role in the future evolution of the Laboratory.
The Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative
The objective of the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) is to vastly improve the high-performance computing capability at the national security laboratories. Numerical simulation and computer models, benchmarked with historical nuclear test data and results from laboratory experiments, will be the principal tools for assuring stockpile performance in the future. In the absence of nuclear testing, we need more realism in the computer simulations--improved models of physical effects, greater resolution, and use of three spatial dimensions (no symmetries in the problem). To simulate more realistically all of the complex physical phenomena that occur in a nuclear weapon, we need over a thousand-fold increase in computer speed and data storage capacity.Orders-of-magnitude improvement in capability requires computers with multiple processors working together to rapidly solve a single problem. The use of a machine with more than 100 processors is called massively parallel processing (MPP). To date, massively parallel computing has not advanced as rapidly as it might because of the difficulty in creating efficient, high-performance parallel programs. Obstacles arise from deficiencies in computer (hardware) design and in the development of applications software. To advance the state of the art, the national security laboratories must work with the developers of MPP computers in a multi-year cooperative effort. In addition, information management systems, data storage systems, computer networks, and computer graphics systems all must be improved. These efforts comprise the ASCI, and $45 million in the Defense Programs FY 1996 budget submission supports this important initiative.
High-performance computing has always been central to scientific programs at Livermore so the ASCI is vital to our future. In addition to the classified Livermore Computer Center, LLNL is home for the National Energy Research Supercomputer Center (NERSC). Overall, nearly 10% of the Laboratory's annual budget is invested in the development of applications and systems software. We have acquired two MPP computers--a Meiko CS-2 and a CRAY T3D, and we are working on a prototype high-speed network which will interconnect LLNL and LANL to access the resources of both sites. There is a second CRAY T3D and a Thinking Machines Corporation CM-5 at LANL.
We are using the MPP computers to develop three dimensional simulations which include a wide range of structural, high explosive and plasma physics phenomena present in a nuclear device. These efforts require new numerical algorithms and programming techniques to efficiently use the capability of the new machines.
The ASCI is augmented by the Industrial Computing Initiative (ICI), a $52 million CRADA involving LLNL, LANL, and eight industrial partners. In the three-year ICI effort, computer applications originally created specifically for DOE programs will be transformed into efficient massively parallel models for use by US industry to improve productivity and competitiveness. Simultaneously the enhanced codes will be reintegrated into ongoing DOE programs. Another CRADA that supports ASCI is the National Storage Laboratory, an effort based at LLNL's NERSC to research and commercialize technologies for high-performance computer storage of large amounts and diverse types of information.
The Contained Firing Facility at Site 300
Hydrodynamic testing is the only currently available way of experimentally testing the implosion phase of a nuclear detonation. These are critical experiments for understanding weapon safety, assessing the performance of weapon primaries, and evaluating the feasibility of approaches for safely disabling a nuclear device. The Defense Programs budget submission includes $16 million in FY 1996 for construction of the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT) at LANL and $6.6 million for enhancement of the Flash X-Ray facility (FXR) at LLNL's Site 300 to make it a Contained Firing Facility. Containment of the FXR test bed will preserve this important national capability and is a preventive measure to protect against future environmental restrictions.The investment in the Contained Firing Facility is important because of uncertainties associated with future environmental restrictions and the near-term future of DARHT. Construction of DARHT has been halted by court action until completion of an environmental impact statement and the issuance of a record of decision by DOE. Until DARHT comes on line--Autumn of 1998 at the earliest--the FXR facility is the most capable hydrodynamic test facility in the world. It is the best diagnostic tool available for measuring integrated performance of nuclear weapon primaries by nonnuclear testing.
In addition, we are currently upgrading our flash x-radiography capability and making modest investments in the FXR accelerator. The development and use of a gamma-ray camera (replacing the use of film) provides greater sensitivity and resolution at modest cost. It paves the way for being able to obtain a time-sequenced set of images, which would be an important capability for a future more-advanced hydrodynamic test facility.
The Importance of Independent Evaluation
Stockpile assurance very critically depends on the process of validation and certification of weapons performance. In the past, validation and certification was greatly assisted by nuclear testing--the final arbiter. In the future it will depend on the judgment of personnel in the program supported by the nonnuclear testing they will be able to perform. It is not surprising that the Galvin Task Force identified "attracting and retaining skilled scientists, engineers, and managers over the years ahead" as the highest priority in stockpile stewardship. The assessments of these scientists must be folded into a management process that will make use of independent evaluations to provide the required confidence in the stockpile.I strongly believe that such confidence in the performance of the US nuclear stockpile can only result from the independent judgments and evaluations provided by the expertise and capabilities of all of the laboratories. Assuring the safety and reliability of our nuclear deterrent in the absence of testing is a new and major challenge. We are heading into uncharted territory and should take full advantage of the knowledge and commitment of trained people at each of the laboratories.
Judgments about nuclear weapons issues are particularly complicated because of the uniqueness of the enterprise. For security reasons, only a small community of people have the necessary expertise and access to tools to deal with the intricate classified details of the modern nuclear weapons in the stockpile. In addition, many physics and engineering issues are special to the discipline, such as material properties at extreme pressures and temperatures. Furthermore, we will not have an accurate calibration on how well the new system is working until a few critical decisions have been made, and our customer, the Department of Defense, is satisfied with the results.
Sidney Drell (as Chairman of the National Security Panel of the University of California's President's Council on the National Laboratories) wrote:
"Livermore's excellence is of great importance, in particular for peer review purposes, as we enter into a comprehensive test ban era and address new challenges to maintaining long-term confidence in the safety, reliability, and effectiveness of our stockpile. ...We believe there is a need for strong support to maintain LLNL's excellent design and diagnostic capabilities at this time. ...Gradual consolidation of the two laboratories' weapons activities is entirely appropriate with reduced stockpile needs, but we urge caution in assessing more fully their impact before taking specific actions lest we lose important peer review capabilities while they are still needed."I strongly believe that we must carefully define the process that will be needed, recognizing that it will need to function effectively for the foreseeable future. And we must avoid irreversible decisions before the process is adequately tested.
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