The Watusi high-explosives experiment erupts from the desert floor at the Nevada Test Site on Saturday afternoon. The experiment yielded a blast equivalent to 37,000 pounds of TNT. Photo by John McAfee, Dynamic Experimentation Division (DX)
MERCURY, NEV. — Last Saturday afternoon, the skyline of the Nevada Test Site was filled with a cloud of dust as a Los Alamos team set off a spectacular high-explosives experiment.
The Watusi experiment sought to show that existing seismic and infrasound sensors at the test site and across the West that were used in the days of underground nuclear testing still can detect and characterize explosions accurately. Several new, promising diagnostic instruments that may provide more reliable or more sensitive capabilities also were tested during the experiment.
Harry Jenkins of Dynamic Experimentation (DX-DO), who directed the experiment, and Jonathan Mace of High Explosives Science (DX-2), who led technical work on Watusi, both said they were pleased with the experiment and the data returned from the various instruments monitoring the explosion.
The yield of the experiment was equivalent to approximately 37,000 pounds of TNT. It took place at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Big Explosive Experimental Facility, or BEEF, about 12 miles east of the test site's central Control Point. The final mixture of chemical explosives was combined remotely and automatically, but the final "push of the button" was done manually. The experiment was designed to consume all of the explosive materials.
Jenkins said the experiment's success was due to hard work and close collaboration among staff from Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia national laboratories, NTS operating contractor Bechtel Nevada, the National Nuclear Security Administration and federal and state agencies, several of which sent instruments to monitor Watusi.
Among the new instruments fielded at Watusi was a simple, superconducting infrasound sensor under early development by a team led by Fred Mueller of the Superconductivity Technology Center (MST-STC). If proven, the sensor may provide more sensitivity and better ability to pinpoint the location of an explosion than current infrasound arrays.
The name Watusi, a species of long-horned African cattle, was chosen to link the experiment to the BEEF locale.
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