(Panel 2)

Surety is a level of confidence that a system will operate exactly as planned under both expected and unexpected circumstances.

Reliability in normal environments

Safety of people and surroundings in abnormal environments

Security and Use Control in malevolent environments

(Panel 3)

Even though the two nuclear superpowers have agreed to shrink their arsenals, the threat posed by nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons remains. Regional instabilities, territorial ambitions, the spread of advanced military technologies, and the risk that nuclear materials could fall into hostile hands present a continued threat to the United States.

Sandia is the Department of Energy facility responsible for systems engineering of nuclear weapons and for system-level stewardship of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, with particular emphasis on surety. Sandia’s 50-year history in developing and applying surety principles has provided the nation with a nuclear weapons program that has never experienced the unthinkable–an accidental nuclear detonation.

Many public and private institutions contribute to the surety of the nation. In many cases, partnerships manage system-level surety. For example, the Department of Defense is accountable for the surety of complete weapon systems and the DOE is responsible for the surety of the nuclear warheads. At the national laboratory level, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories are accountable for the nuclear explosive. Sandia is accountable for the surety of the electronic, mechanical, and aerodynamic subsystems and the stockpile infrastructure. Surety science and engineering originated in Sandia’s experiences with nuclear weapons and derivative applications.

The very same surety science and engineering principles are being used to address national problems in reliability, safety, and security. The same systemic approach that incorporates modeling and simulation, testing and evaluation, risk management, reliability development, and physical security can also safeguard Americans in the way we live and work, and as we move into the progressively complex future.

(Panel 4)

Until the advent of nuclear weapons and other high-consequence systems, we were satisfied to understand why and how things worked. We used science and engineering to turn matter and energy into structures, machines, and products useful to people.

We were satisfied that human ingenuity turned scientific knowledge and engineering processes "A" into useful innovations "B."

Beginning with the invention of nuclear weapons through the Manhattan Project, we entered a new era of high-consequence management. We built the first nuclear reactors and separation plants to produce

plutonium and enrich uranium. We realized that there are a limited number of ways for a system to operate as intended, but there are many more ways for it to fail and produce unintended consequences, some of which can be catastrophic.

To prevent catastrophes, we had to go further and thoroughly understand why and how things fail, even if the failure mode was too unlikely to consider from a traditional engineering approach.

Thus was born Surety Science and Engineering.

(Panel 5)

Sandia’s surety strategy is transcending its Cold War origins through partnerships with other federal agencies, the Department of Energy, private industry, and universities to help manage the new 21st Century challenges with a new level of confidence.

• Safe, secure, and reliable energy
• Reliable infrastructures
• Managing the increasing complexity of interdependent systems
• Countering

• physical and cyber terrorism
• chemical or biological weapons
• crime

• Safe and secure schools
• Solutions for

• aviation safety and security
• aging infrastructure
• an aging nuclear stockpile

• Economic advantage to public missions from leveraging surety solutions from American industry
• No accidental nuclear detonations
• A credible deterrent

"Because so many key components of our society are operated by the private sector, we must create a genuine public-private partnership to protect America in the 21st Century."

–President Clinton

(Panel 7)

Over the past 50 years, Sandia has studied and advanced solutions for the surety problems of a broad spectrum of national and international systems.

The benefits of surety are straightforward. But achieving surety relies on all the sciences–physical, chemical, and biological–as well as mathematics, engineering, and human and societal studies.

Sandia’s rigorous, systemic approach defines four levels of surety. Higher-consequence risks require higher levels of surety.

The first level of surety is adequate for most manufactured goods and predictable events in the everyday world. It relies on machines, humans, and systems working as expected. Warranties, insurance, or simple replacement are sufficient when things fail.

The second level relies on highly trained, proactive human intervention for higher-surety systems. Commercial air travel and most military operations belong in this second level. In these cases, well-trained professionals adapt to changing circumstances to provide surety.

However, the limited ability of people to interpret new experiences with old and inappropriate expectations can be disastrous. The third level uses positive measures from science and engineering to provide greater assurance that systems operate as planned or fail gracefully. The automated passive or active cooling systems in a nuclear reactor illustrate this level of surety, as do the surety systems built into older nuclear weapons.

The fourth level of surety uses–to the extent possible–only the laws of nature and mathematics to assure safety and reliability, preclude unintended consequences, and continually move toward the goal of absolute surety. Modern nuclear weapons use this level of surety. As the already old nuclear stockpile grows even older, this level of surety is continuously tested and refined at Sandia.

The four levels are only the beginning. Within each level, principles, approaches, and tactics guide designers. Sandia has systematized all these elements into a powerful new surety strategy that is akin to quality but surpasses it in breadth, depth, and scope.

The difference between systemic and systematic approaches is subtle, but essential to understanding the broad scope of surety.

Systematic–an attribute of the scientific method–implies a thorough, ordered approach to a problem or set of problems. A systematic approach is as broad as the scope of the problem(s)–it covers all the bases in a logical, defined sequence.

Systemic goes beyond systematic to encompass not just all the bases, but the entire ballpark, and the impact of the ballpark on the city beyond. Literally, systemic means "of the whole body"–whether that body is an engineered system or an international political effort toward nuclear nonproliferation.

Questions and Comments || Acknowledgment and Disclaimer