Long-term robustness of Soviet and Russian nuclear armaments

[Terry Bites]

It is a political subject, how could it not be? I assume you have been watching the news?
WMDs are not objects of technical curiosity.

[niconiconi]

I was wondering recently how probable it is that Russian nuclear ICBM warheads are in fact functional. Assumedly like in any arsenal some percentage will be duds, but the question is what percentage. I soon figured that I don't know anything at all about those systems:

The thread is already 10 pages long, but so far nobody has mentioned this important subject: pulsed power and fusion research facilities. All the world's nuclear superpowers have their pulsed power research institutions, with enormous impulse generators with building-size huge capacitor banks and pulse-forming networks that can delivery nanosecond impulses with huge peak power. 1 gigawatt is the standard (Back To The Future is not just a science fiction), but many terawatts is achievable. Petawatt-class pulsed power machines are now under consideration.

The USA has Z Pulsed Power Facility and National Ignition Facility, the UK has MAGPIE (Mega Ampere Generator for Plasma Implosion Experiments).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Pulsed_Power_Facility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAGPIE

These research facilities also have a civilian purpose, for fusion power research and even basic physics research by studying materials under extremely pressure and temperature. But first and foremost, the official mission of these facilities is for "supporting U.S. deterrence policy by helping sustain and secure the nuclear arsenal". In other words, testing materials under extreme conditions to simulate a nuclear bomb detonation, since a real denotation is now a violation of international treaties. These experiments are also performed to gather data to build better physics models for computer simulations of nuclear weapons.

[cheater]

Thanks. A few questions:
- are pulse power facilities the same thing as particle beam generators? Can they perform the same role?
- does Russia have pulse power facilities? Are they modern? The only information I've been able to find is from the 1960s so I don't know if it's even worth reading through https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R2212.html

And a few comments:
- the nuclear test ban comes from the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty. (Acronymized CTBT, they drop the N for no reason)
- it was signed by Russia and 38 other states
- it was not signed by DPRK, India, or Pakistan, although they were asked
- it was signed but not ratified by China, Egypt, Israel, Iran and the United States
- if you go to this handy map, you will see that a few regions are neither signed nor not signed nor ratified: https://www.nti.org/education-center/treaties-and-regimes/comprehensive-nuclear-test-ban-treaty-ctbt/
- the gray zones include Ukraine. My assumption is the UN just ignored the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign nation, but maybe someone else has better insight into that era.
- the gray zones also include the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist sham-states aproved by mad vlad
- and he also already said he might just run some nuclear tests right up to the border of Ukraine
- so if he gets nuclear armaments to one of those states and they just so happen to want to run a nuclear test on their land, or on his land "unbeknownst to him", then he's in the eyes of the public technically not breaking the treaty. I bet the treaty thought of such a case, but he might bet no one cares
- mad vlad is suspiciously close to India nowadays
- India does have a nuclear program
- hopefully he'll be too busy occupied to thread all those pearls in one go

[LaserSteve]

Hate to burst your bubble. No plasma beams. A tiny, very hot plasma is formed as part of the experiment.

Pulsed power is all about compressing materials using
mega-amps of current or arrays of intense laser beams.
The two facilities I have visited implode very tiny wires
using a self pinching effect which  occurs with massive, fast, currents.  The hair fine wire is eventually vaporized.

How the imaging is timed is not a subject for this post.

Gold is the usual simulation material for the discharge style machines.

Steve

[TimFox]

I once attended a meeting of the IEEE Pulsed Power Conference, which includes fusion engineering, but also other topics and applications.
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/conhome/1000597/all-proceedings
At the time, I was working on pulsed electron linear accelerators for x-ray generation, and went to see what was happening with Marx generators.
I reported afterwords to my colleagues that it was cool attending discussions of equipment that was designed to generate one pulse and explode (exploding wire generators).

[themadhippy]

generate one pulse and explode

sounds like several of my projects

[T3sl4co1l]

generate one pulse and explode

sounds like several of my projects

Far from it. These were designed to explode once, you see.

Tim

[cheater]

Let's get back on track and think about what the situation of pulsed power facilities in Russia as well as their status with nuclear ice breakers means for their nuclear armament program.

[coppice]

I reported afterwords to my colleagues that it was cool attending discussions of equipment that was designed to generate one pulse and explode (exploding wire generators).

Things designed to generate one pulse and explode not uncommon in safety systems. You probably sit surrounded by several each day while commuting.

[niconiconi]

- does Russia have pulse power facilities? Are they modern? The only information I've been able to find is from the 1960s so I don't know if it's even worth reading through https://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R2212.html

I know as much as you. As we have seen, the information available (at least in a quick web search) is very little, first because of the language barrier, next also because the relative openness of the US government is the exception rather than the norm. So the question remains open.

P.S: During the search I also found a good review paper on the roles played by these research facilities on nuclear weapon testing. It's written from the perspective of nuclear test ban, outdated but still comprehensive, and it's likely relevant to your interest.

Laboratory Testing in a Test Ban / Non-Proliferation Regime
Above Ground Experiments threaten compliance with article VI of the non-proliferation treaty.
http://scipp.ucsc.edu/~haber/UC_CORP/testban.html

[niconiconi]

Also a short related presentation from Sandia National Laboratories.
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1513514