Advanced Supercomputer Models Supplant Real-World Nuclear Weapons Tests

Advanced Supercomputer Models Supplant Real-World Nuclear Weapons Tests | Popular Science@import "/files/css/a1c433465f8fe485195cb11d70c36108.css";@import "/files/css/33f6b7ecb4513ed2fe6c670880a27187.css"; home Login/Register Newsletter Subscribe RSS GadgetsComputersCamerasSmartphonesVideo GamesCarsConceptsHybridsElectric CarsScienceFuture of the EnvironmentEnergyHealthPopSci Eco TourTechnologyMilitaryAviationSpaceRobotsEngineeringDIYProjectsHacksToolsAuto DIYMore From Our Partner: Toolmonger GalleriesVideosColumnsThe GrouseSex FilesGreen Dream Innovation ChallengesHow It WorksFeatures Tweet Digg Advanced Supercomputer Models Supplant Real-World Nuclear Weapons Tests But are they accurate? By Rebecca Boyle Posted 11.02.2011 at 5:41 pm 5 Comments
Trinity Test Jack Aeby / Department of Energy

While our friends Jaguar and Ranger toil to model the Earth’s atmosphere, star formation and battery chemistry, other supercomputers are working on classified national security problems. Namely: What happens when a nuclear weapon explodes? Are we sure our nuclear arsenal would actually work, should, God forbid, we decide to use it?

Related ArticlesJaguar, What Are You Working on Today?Jaguar is Getting a GPU Upgrade, to Make it the World's Fastest Supercomputer AgainOak Ridge Labs Using World's Fastest Supercomputer to Model Next-Gen Nuclear PlantsTagsTechnology, Rebecca Boyle, lawrence livermore national laboratory, military, nuclear tests, nuclear weapons, supercomputer, supercomputersAfter live nuclear testing ended (or at least was supposed to end) in 1992, supercomputers supplanted explosions so scientists could continue studying how they work. The nation’s stockpile stewardship program, run by the National Nuclear Security Administration at three national laboratories, checks the nation’s nukes for any problems. Supercomputers at Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national labs conduct tests that can in some ways go beyond the detail of any live explosion, as the Washington Post reports.

They have found some good news and some bad news, as Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., puts it: “The good news is that it tells us a lot more about these weapons than we ever knew before. The bad news is that it tells us the weapons have bigger problems that we realized,” he tells the WaPo.

For example, several years ago scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory modeled the life cycle of a nuke, from the moment it leaves storage to the instant it impacts its target. They found some fatal flaws that would cause the warhead to “fail catastrophically,” as the Post quotes Bruce T. Goodwin, Livermore’s principal associate director for weapons programs. The military has since fixed the problem, the Post reports.

The flaw lay in the weapon’s ballistics handling, not its explosivity, so this is something that could never have been revealed in a physical test, the Post notes. The power of supercomputers to model these types of things could negate the need for physical testing, some officials say — but Congress has still not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (although the U.S. abides by it). It turns out not everyone trusts supercomputers. Kyl believes while they are helpful, they’re not a substitute for testing, the Post quotes him saying. “That’s why, even though we’re not testing right now, we should not give up the legal right to test,” he said.

Click through to the Post's account for the full story on how supercomputers are helping model the most explosive forces in nature.

[Washington Post]

Previous Article: See The Data-Centric Universe, Then and NowNext Article: What Are You Doing Today, iForge? 5 Comments Link to this comment D13 11/02/11 at 10:52 pm

what further testing of "nukes" is needed?

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no spoon."

Link to this comment trireme 11/03/11 at 1:27 am

@ D13- Brand-new-off-the-assembly-line nukes don't need testing, but the US stockpile has many 30+ year old nukes whose components have been bombarded by radiation for all that time. There is a program to refurbish/replace the components on these older weapons, but there is a backlog. Politicians don't like nuclear testing, but many nuclear experts don't trust the computer simulations.

Link to this comment emneumann 11/03/11 at 7:24 am

Not to mention the spontaneous degredation of the fissile and fusable elements that are the true heart of the bomb. Over time, there is less of the U-235 and Deuterium and or Tritium that would produce a lower yield in the best case or prevent a chain reaction altogether in the worst case.

Link to this comment scientific anomaly 11/03/11 at 8:20 am

well thats not extremely good that when its in mid flight it decides to take out the u.s. military base than the enemies. atleast the terrorrists would be dead in the explosion too

-Knock knock
-Who's there?
-The Doctor.
-Doctor Who?
-Yes

Link to this comment Q 11/03/11 at 8:33 am

D13,
Any and all electronic components as they are stored degrade. Some electronic components simply stop working all together sitting on the shelf. With that said, consider how old the original nuclear bombs, missiles and arsenal are. The active ones we have need to be constantly pulled and the electronics constantly test, simply because they are aging.

Besides, over the course of time as you know, there have been many improvements in electronics and so upgrades are made to the weapons too.

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New solar system formation models indicate that Jupiter's foray robbed Mars of mass

ScienceDaily (June 6, 2011) — Planetary scientists have long wondered why Mars is only about half the size and one-tenth the mass of Earth. As next-door neighbors in the inner solar system, probably formed about the same time, why isn't Mars more like Earth and Venus in size and mass? A paper published in the journal Nature provides the first cohesive explanation and, by doing so, reveals an unexpected twist in the early lives of Jupiter and Saturn as well.

Dr. Kevin Walsh, a research scientist at Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), led an international team performing simulations of the early solar system, demonstrating how an infant Jupiter may have migrated to within 1.5 astronomical units (AU, the distance from the Sun to Earth) of the Sun, stripping a lot of material from the region and essentially starving Mars of formation materials.

"If Jupiter had moved inwards from its birthplace down to 1.5 AU from the Sun, and then turned around when Saturn formed as other models suggest, eventually migrating outwards towards its current location, it would have truncated the distribution of solids in the inner solar system at about 1 AU and explained the small mass of Mars," says Walsh. "The problem was whether the inward and outward migration of Jupiter through the 2 to 4 AU region could be compatible with the existence of the asteroid belt today, in this same region. So, we started to do a huge number of simulations.

"The result was fantastic," says Walsh. "Our simulations not only showed that the migration of Jupiter was consistent with the existence of the asteroid belt, but also explained properties of the belt never understood before."

The asteroid belt is populated with two very different types of rubble, very dry bodies as well as water-rich orbs similar to comets. Walsh and collaborators showed that the passage of Jupiter depleted and then re-populated the asteroid belt region with inner-belt bodies originating between 1 and 3 AU as well as outer-belt bodies originating between and beyond the giant planets, producing the significant compositional differences existing today across the belt.

The collaborators call their simulation the "Grand Tack Scenario," from the abrupt change in the motion of Jupiter at 1.5 AU, like that of a sailboat tacking around a buoy. The migration of the gas giants is also supported by observations of many extra-solar planets found in widely varying ranges from their parent stars, implying migrations of planets elsewhere in universe.

The paper, published in the June 5 issue of the journal Nature, was written by Walsh; Alessandro Morbidelli of the Université de Nice, France; Sean N. Raymond of Université de Bordeaux, France; David P. O'Brien of Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz.; and Avi M. Mandell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The research was funded by the Helmholtz Alliance, the French National Center for Scientific Research and NASA.

Story Source:

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Southwest Research Institute, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Journal Reference:

Kevin J. Walsh, Alessandro Morbidelli, Sean N. Raymond, David P. O'Brien, Avi M. Mandell. A low mass for Mars from Jupiter’s early gas-driven migration. Nature, 2011; DOI: 10.1038/nature10201

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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