Y-12 program supports stockpile readiness
Y-12 Advanced Simulation and Computing program draws on power of high-performance computers to support stockpile readiness
Wed, 23 July 2008
In a world where underground testing of nuclear weapons is no longer conducted, the supercomputer is becoming the tool for understanding and evaluating the condition of the nation’s stockpile.
The National Nuclear Security Administration’s Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program leverages the enormous capacity and speed of today’s high-performance computers to test and certify the performance of nuclear weapons using modeling and simulation.
“That’s the charge for ASC,” said Bob Bonner, ASC program manager at the Y‑12 National Security Complex. “ASC provides the analytical codes and computational platforms needed to model the physics and performance of stockpile components.”
Y-12 is a key facility in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex and is responsible for ensuring the safety, reliability, and security of the nuclear weapons stockpile and serves as the nation’s primary repository of highly enriched uranium.
Bonner said that through participation in the ASC program, Y‑12 links with the three Nuclear Weapons Complex design laboratories: Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories.
“We have access to a selection of ASC’s high-performance computers, which are among the fastest in the world,” Bonner said. “Perhaps more importantly, we have access to the knowledge and experience for productive application of the computers which the laboratories gained through the ASC program.”
Meanwhile, Y-12’s Campaigns organization has purchased a mid-range computing capability to support production activities and to serve as a development platform for simulations that can be scaled to larger problem sizes for execution on ASC high-performance platforms. Campaigns is the technology investment engine driving transformation at Y‑12 and across the Nuclear Weapons Complex.
“The entire system purchase price was less than the annual hardware and software maintenance cost of Manhattan, Y‑12’s first high-performance computer,” said Bonner. “The system presently supports a variety of applications including computed tomography in Plant-Directed Research, Development and Demonstration’s search for better nondestructive evaluation methods.”
Connectivity to computing assets of the laboratories will soon be enhanced through another Y-12 ASC-managed program. The NWC is in the process of integrating complex-wide classified computer systems. “We’re building an Enterprise Secure Network,” said Paul Parris of Information Technology. “The ESN will absorb the functionality of today’s classified network, SecureNet, as well as adding additional standardized security features.”
Parris said ESN will connect all the sites in the Complex with a classified network built on common hardware platforms and common software components, making it much easier and cheaper to maintain and operate, and it will provide consistent security services across the classified environment.
“It will also provide a base to begin to more fully integrate the entire Complex’s classified weapons program activities, from design, to planning, to manufacturing,” said Parris.
“ESN will, through its common hardware, software and services, allow a single sign on so you can log on here using a single set of credentials that will be recognizable across the Complex. Based on your need to know, you can be granted access to other computer platforms and applications at remote sites,” Parris said.
Y-12 is a key facility in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex and is responsible for ensuring the safety, reliability, and security of the nuclear weapons stockpile and serves as the nation’s primary repository of highly enriched uranium. B&W Technical Services Y‑12 operates the Y‑12 National Security Complex for the National Nuclear Security Administration.