Making use of optimization, nondeterministic analysis, and numerical simulation to assess firing set robustness in a fire

Conference · Thu Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:273807

Romero, V J

One emphasis of weapon surety (safety and security) at Sandia National Laboratories is the assessment of fire-related risk to weapon systems. New developments in computing hardware and software make possible the application of a new generation of very powerful analysis tools for surety assessment. This paper illustrates the application of some of these computational tools to assess the robustness of a conceptual firing set design in severe thermal environments. With these assessment tools, systematic interrogation of the parameter space governing the thermal robustness of the firing set has revealed much greater vulnerability than traditional ad hoc techniques had indicated. These newer techniques should be routinely applied in weapon design and assessment to produce more fully characterized and robust systems where weapon surety is paramount. As well as helping expose and quantify vulnerabilities in systems, these tools can be used in design and resource allocation processes to build safer, more reliable, more optimal systems.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Labs., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 273807
• Report Number(s): SAND--96-2046C; CONF-960869--16; ON: DE96013834
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
FAILURES
FIRES
HEAT TRANSFER
HEATING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PROBABILITY
SAFETY
SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES
SECURITY
SIMULATION
STAINLESS STEELS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
TIME DEPENDENCE
VULNERABILITY
WEAPONS