CT Scans Can Now Peer Inside Nukes

Aging components inside nuclear missiles and warheads can trigger unfathomable disasters at any moment, therefore analyzing their integrity and function is essential for the nuclear security of all countries with such capabilities. This is also a high priority in the United States, but, up until now, only dismembering a missile gave engineers a clue about its “health status.” The investigation process is now about to become much simpler. Physicists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announce the creation of the device that can peer inside bombs without the actual devices being broken apart, PhysOrg reports.

The essential tool is basically an X-ray computed tomography (CT) system that was created by experts at the DOE Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The team here worked closely together with colleagues at the Amarillo, Texas-based NNSA Pantex Plant for developing the new instrument, which is capable of “surveillance transformation” capabilities that are both cost-efficient, and optimized for nuclear weapons. The Security Administration says that the tool will provide it with a new level of confidence in the ongoing performance of the nation's nuclear stockpile.

“This new system is a prime example of NNSA's ability to leverage the best science and technology in the world to solve complex national security challenges and highlights our commitment to transforming a Cold War nuclear weapons complex into a 21st century nuclear security enterprise. We are fortunate to have dedicated scientists working together from across the nuclear security enterprise to develop cutting-edge tools to monitor aging in critical weapon components,” Thomas P. D'Agostino, the NNSA administrator, says.

The innovation was dubbed CoLOSSIS, which stands for the Confined Large Optical Scintillator Screen and Imaging System, and the team that worked on its development says that it acts just like a CT scan does for patients in a hospital. High-resolution digital radiographs of the analyzed nuclear weapon are collected, and then centralized into a large, 3D image of its interior. This allows experts to look at all components, and determine if any of them suffers from age-related degradation, or other similar defects. The work done at LLNL and Pantex was supported via an NNSA Enhanced Surveillance and Core Surveillance Program.