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Tag Archives: stockpile stewardship

Simulating sneezes and coughs to show how COVID-19 spreads

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Two groups of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have published papers on the droplets of liquid sprayed by coughs or sneezes and how far they can travel under different conditions. Both teams used Sandia’s decades of experience with advanced computer simulations studying how liquids and gases move for its nuclear stockpile stewardship […]

Evaluating nuclear weapons: Sandia Labs taking a modern approach

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is transforming how it assesses nuclear weapons in a stockpile made up of weapons at different stages in their lifecycles — some systems that have existed for decades alongside those that have undergone life extension programs. Back when the United States was developing new nuclear weapon systems, weapons typically […]

Thor’s hammer to crush materials at 1 million atmospheres

Sophisticated features may influence eventual Z-machine rebuild ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A new Sandia National Laboratories accelerator called Thor is expected to be 40 times more efficient than Sandia’s Z machine, the world’s largest and most powerful pulsed-power accelerator, in generating pressures to study materials under extreme conditions. “Thor’s magnetic field will reach about one million […]

Studies look at long-term aging of electronics in nuclear weapons

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories is studying how environments, including radiation that originates from a nuclear weapon itself, could affect the performance of electronics in the W76-1 warhead as they age. Sandia, which is responsible for most non-nuclear components in U.S. nuclear weapons, is helping replace W76 warheads in the nation’s stockpile with a […]