Nuclear weaponsDesign competitions needed to maintain U.S. nuclear deterrent
Preserving the U.S. nuclear weapon design skills is essential for sustaining a credible nuclear deterrent, understanding the status and direction of foreign nuclear weapons programs, and determining the best solutions to problems that arise during stockpile surveillance and maintenance. In the absence of nuclear explosion testing, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should develop a series of design competitions that integrate the full end-to-end design process from novel design conception through production and non-nuclear testing of an engineered prototype, says a new report.
Preserving the U.S. nuclear weapon design skills is essential for sustaining a credible nuclear deterrent, understanding the status and direction of foreign nuclear weapons programs, and determining the best solutions to problems that arise during stockpile surveillance and maintenance. In the absence of nuclear explosion testing, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) should develop a series of design competitions that integrate the full end-to-end design process from novel design conception through production and non-nuclear testing of an engineered prototype, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report emphasizes that these competitions should be done with the clear understanding that the prototypes would not enter the nation’s nuclear weapon stockpile.
The NAS says that during the cold war, teams from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), each supported by Sandia National Laboratories, conducted formal design competitions for the nuclear and non-nuclear components and delivery systems of various nuclear warheads. The designs were then often checked through nuclear explosion tests. Following the moratorium on nuclear testing in 1992, the three NNSA laboratories strengthened their technical evaluation and peer-review processes to ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear stockpile and to maintain the necessary science, engineering design, and innovation capabilities in the workforce.
The Academies report found that today, these peer-review processes are “healthy and robust” and serve to increase confidence in weapon assessment and certification, improve understanding of weapons physics, address weapon aging issues, and identify lower-cost approaches to life-extension programs for the stockpile. It says that the review processes at LANL and LLNL could be further strengthened with written guidance for its peer-review approach, while Sandia National Laboratories should broaden the use of outside experts on its peer-review teams.
In contrast, the state of design competition among the laboratories is not robust, the report says. There have been no full design competitions since the 1992 moratorium. While some recent studies have challenged laboratory staff members’ skills in modeling and analysis, they did not result in actual engineering and fabrication of components and systems, so they did not exercise the complete skill set required for effective nuclear deterrence.
The innovations produced by design competitions during the cold war increased confidence in the safety and reliability of the weapons stockpile and illustrated the value of having independent teams address common problems, the report says. Implementing full design competitions once again would help develop and maintain a competent workforce, avoid the potential of losing capabilities essential for responding to evolving threats, and instill confidence in all stakeholders of our nation to maintain its nuclear deterrent.
The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
— Read more in Peer Review and Design Competition in the NNSA National Security Laboratories (National Academies Press, 2015)
