January 2007
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Sixth Annual Nuclear Weapons Engineering Analysis Conference (NWEAC)

Sandia National Laboratories hosted the sixth annual Nuclear Weapons Engineering Analysis Conference at Monterey, CA, on September 5-8, 2006. Approximately 70 engineering analysts from Sandia, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Kansas City Plant, and Y-12 met to discuss their respective nuclear weapons engineering simulations.

Topical areas covered at this classified conference included (1) assessments of confidence in engineering models and their usefulness for specific applications and assessment of weapon performance based on these models, (2) examples of quantification of margins and uncertainty (QMU) applications, (3) analysis for safety, transportation, and manufacturing, and (4) analysis challenges/requirements for certifying new designs.

Bob Stevens from Los Alamos received a best paper award for his talk entitled “Comparison of Some W76-1 Hostile Environments and Their Ground Test Surrogates.” Attendees agreed that NWEAC continues to be the best forum for the nuclear weapons engineering community for discussing their issues on computational simulation. The seventh annual NWEAC is scheduled for September 4-6, 2007 in Monterey.