Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., is working on simulating air-breathing hypersonic vehicles and is studying failure modes such as shock waves and error estimation. Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., is simulating microelectromechanical systems technologies, from contact physics and membrane response to multiscale modeling of damping, and integrating it all into a coherent simulation system.
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor is developing a software framework for radiation hydrodynamics in shock waves. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena is studying the high energy-density dynamic response of materials in impacts of metallic projectiles and targets at velocities up to 10 kilometers per second. The PSAAP universities are conducting such leading edge modeling and analysis as:
Predictive science is applicable to a wide range of analyses that require extremely large, complicated models, such as biological systems, global economics, nuclear weapons effects, climate modeling, and manufacturing.
The goal of the program is to focus on “predictive science” based on verified and validated large-scale simulations that can predict properties of complex systems, particularly where experimental tests of the physics are not feasible. Department of Energy created the Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program with five leading universities, it was looking to do more than virtually test nuclear weapons. In the Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program, five universities-California Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, Purdue University, Stanford University and the-conduct research to support the National Nuclear Security Administration’s stockpile stewardship mission, which includes training scientists and engineers in the new field of ‘predictive science’.
The Department of Energy is encouraging the recognition of verification and validation as a scientific discipline in and of itself. Due to the complexity and uncertainties in simulations, leading engineering organizations such as Los Alamos are changing their approach to simulating large, complicated problems such as the thermodynamics of nuclear explosions.
Stockpile Stewardship is groundbreaking science in which experiments must comply with the nuclear test moratorium, arms limitation treaties, and budgetary and political realities that go with them. Although the simulations are challenging, the role of simulations continues to increase significantly in the absence of nuclear testing. Simulating the thermodynamics of a nuclear blast requires millions of variables. This article describes various features of Stockpile Stewardship programme meant for testing of nuclear weapons.