The Weapons and Complex Integration (WCI) Principal Associate Directorate is responsible for ensuring the safety, reliability, and security of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing, for developing advanced manufacturing and materials technologies to maintain our nation's stockpile, and for ensuring the safe dismantlement of retired weapons. — Bruce T. Goodwin, Principal Associate Director for WCI
WCI has worked to establish a science-based fundamental understanding of nuclear weapons performance, enhanced warhead surveillance tools to detect the onset of problems in the stockpile, and manufacturing capabilities to produce critical components. The most important accomplishment of the Stockpile Stewardship Program is that the nuclear design laboratories have been able to assess and certify the safety, security, and reliability of the stockpile each year without a return to nuclear testing.
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Plutonium at 150 Years: Going Strong and Aging GracefullyPlanning the future needs of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile as well as the nuclear weapons complex depends in part on maintaining confidence in the long-term stability of the pit, or core, of plutonium-239 residing inside every weapon. [See article] |
A Home for Energetic Materials and their ExpertsSince its founding in 1991, Livermore's Energetic Materials Center (EMC) has been the focal point for research and development of explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics at the Laboratory. [See article and Bruce Goodwin's commentary, Energetic Materials Research Finds an Enduring Home and Mission] |
Extending the Life of an Aging WeaponA mechanical safe arming detonator (MSAD) prevents accidental or unintended detonation of a nuclear warhead. Stockpile stewards at Livermore are working on an advanced MSAD for the W78. [See article and Bruce Goodwin's commentary, Life-Extension Programs Encompass All Our Expertise] |
WCI accomplishes its mission by conducting science at our cutting-edge facilities, such as the Contained Firing Facility, the High Explosives Applications Facility, the National Ignition Facility, and the Terascale Simulation Facility.
The future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal continues to be guided by two distinct drivers: the preservation of world peace and the prevention of further proliferation through our extended deterrent umbrella. Now more than ever, the nuclear weapons program must respond to the changing global security environment and to increasing budget pressures with innovation and sound investments. As the nation transitions to a reduced stockpile, the successes of the Stockpile Stewardship Program present options to transition to a sustainable complex better suited to stockpile size, national strategic goals and budgetary realities. We, as a nation, have choices to make on how we will achieve a credible 21st century deterrent.
The Livermore-designed all-optical probe dome is studded with outlets for fiber optical lines. The new diagnostic provided continuous photonic Doppler velocimetry data during a subscale integrated weapons experiment performed at the Laboratory's Contained Firing Facility.
A multidisciplinary international team, led by Livermore physicist Don Roberts, designed and conducted the first subscale integrated weapons experiment in the U.S. since the 1980s. What made this test truly remarkable was that the entire experiment was designed using an advanced, three-dimensional (3D) supercomputer software code.
Several features of the multimillion-dollar test conducted in October 2011 were extraordinary. First, in preparation for possible follow-on subcritical experiments using special nuclear material, the experiment was done at subscale—that is, at a smaller scale than an actual nuclear device. Second, the experiment included new diagnostics, scaled detonators, and boosters developed specifically for this IWE but that had not been tested. Finally, the experiment required unprecedented precision in the engineering and assembly of the device because of its subscale size. [More about simulation and precision engineering]
