Enduring Nuclear Stockpile Surety

Dave Carlson

Good morning. I’m Dave Carlson, manager of Surety Engineering Programs, at Sandia National Laboratories.

1. Our Heritage
(Slide 1)

From our beginnings as a laboratory, Sandia’s prime mission has been nuclear weapons engineering. This remains our prime mission today. I want to talk with you this morning about weapons surety — unique concepts developed by Sandia and others in support of the nation’s nuclear weapons program. The technology developed in the weapons program provides the basis for everything else you are going to hear about today.

Weapons surety is our job. Nuclear weapons present a unique challenge. They must work reliably when called upon by the President — even though they sit in storage for years and years. They must be safe if there is ever an accident — we cannot tolerate anything else. And, if terrorists try to steal one, we must provide the strongest defense and make the weapon useless to them. This is our weapons surety challenge.

This challenge has driven us to achieve the highest of surety levels, using engineering and scientific concepts rooted in the laws of nature and mathematics. We approach absolute surety — "Level 4" surety in Pace’s terms — in our nuclear weapons. Let me describe briefly the key elements of our surety approach.

2. Our Surety Approach: Unique Thinking

Engineers typically design systems so that they work. Of course, we work hard to ensure reliable performance. However, the results of failure of a nuclear weapon are so unacceptable that we also spend a great deal of effort thinking about how our weapons might fail — this way of thinking forms the very foundation for weapons surety. We make our weapons so that they will fail in a predictable way, assuring they are safe under all conditions.

Understanding failure requires us to have a profound knowledge of materials and component behavior. We continue to push these frontiers because, today, the US has the oldest weapons stockpile in its history. We must understand aged materials to ensure the continued reliability of the stockpile. Later on this morning, you will hear how this understanding is improving electronics and other commercial industries.

3. Our Surety Approach: Design Principles

Ensuring predictable response even in event of failures has led us to unique principles of design:

• We identify and protect the critical components
• We rely upon laws of physics to achieve predictable performance
• We make sure that nothing in nature can replicate the signals necessary for our weapons to operate.

Ray Bair is going to talk with you about an exciting endeavor through which we might work together to develop fundamental design principles to push the surety of other high consequence operations to new levels.

4. Our Surety Approach: Continual Condition Assessment and Independent Assessment
(Slide 2)

High levels of surety cannot be maintained without constant vigilance. As a result, throughout the life of our weapons, we monitor their condition through surveillance, testing, and quality evaluations. We annually assess the reliability of each of our weapon systems. Again, this has pushed us to develop unique technical capabilities: instrumentation; telemetry; incredibly precise, miniaturized machines.

A culture of continual, independent assessment provides an additional, vital element to maintaining our high levels of surety. As our systems age and as technology advances, we continue to challenge ourselves to not only maintain, but to improve the surety of our systems.

5. Our Surety Approach: Prepare for Emergencies

Finally, even at the high levels of surety present in our weapons, we must be prepared for emergencies. Qualified staff are on call 24 hours a day to respond to any weapons emergency. Thankfully, they haven’t been called upon for many years. Our experience in collecting and managing information, supporting decision makers, training, and planning exercises could benefit those responding to other high consequence events.

6. Surety Dividends — Realized and on the Horizon (Slide 3)

You might wonder how something as arcane as nuclear weapons technology has effected your everyday life. We take for granted the clean room technology essential to our modern electronics industry and essential for our health. Clean rooms came from our need to control contamination in the manufacture of our nuclear weapons. Sensors for automobile air bags derive from instrumentation we developed. Radiation hardened electronics, vital to reliable communications satellites and space travel, were first used in our weapons. And the Mars Pathfinder landing was made possible through our parachute technology.

We foresee even greater benefits in the future. Modeling and simulation coupled with unprecedented computing power, being realized through a program called the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative, is revolutionizing engineering. The designers of tomorrow, not just of weapons but of all systems, will use tools that are just now being invented. Miniaturized machines — so small that they require a microscope to see — offer unimagined possibilities for improved safety and security. Knowledge of failures will enhance the reliability of electronics that we have come to rely upon.

The greatest benefit of all, to those of us working in the weapons program, has been the achievement and continued deployment of an effective deterrent that is safe, secure, and reliable.

In summary, our weapons mission has led us to unique approaches to achieving the highest levels of surety. These concepts — ensuring reliable performance while ensuring predictable safe response to failures, fundamental design principles, continued vigilance, and preparation for emergencies — provide a foundation for meeting the surety challenges of the 21^st century.

Questions and Comments || Acknowledgment and Disclaimer