A multidisciplinary approach to the identification and evaluation of novel concepts for deeply buried hardened target defeat.

摘要

During the Cold War, Deeply Buried Hardened Targets (DBHTs) and the assets they protected were of great strategic and tactical concern to the Department of Defense. Megaton-class nuclear warheads were the only viable means of attacking many of these facilities, and even so, a small subset of DBHTs was anticipated to be robust even in the face of such an attack. Post Cold War, the threat posed by DBHTs has not disappeared. Rather, the conventional warfare advantages of the United States have led to an increasing emphasis by potential adversaries on the construction and use of hardened facilities such as DBHTs for protection of both conventional and unconventional assets. Further, the shift in perceived relative risk to the United States' national security from large scale all-out nuclear attack towards very limited attack by Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has led some to hypothesize that "self-deterrence" may diminish the strategic value of current inventory nuclear weapons.; The objective of the work described was to identify and explore a paradigm shifting solution that could offer leap-ahead capabilities to counter current and future DBHT threats while mitigating or eliminating the "self-deterrence" issue. Systematic evaluation of DHBT defeat alternatives lead to the selection of a thermal subterrene as a hypothetical means of providing such a capability. A number of possible implementation alternatives for a thermal subterrene were investigated, resulting in the identification of the RadioIsotope Powered Thermal Penetrator (RIPTP) concept for providing an effectively unlimited hard rock penetration capability using near-term technologies.; However, the proposed approach was novel and thus required formulation and application of a physics based multidisciplinary analysis code to enable evaluation of lv design alternatives and analysis of performance. Technical considerations identified as important to the feasibility of a RIPTP for DBHT defeat included: packing of RIPTP components in available volume; close-contact melting in a medium with nonlinear thermodynamic properties; radiation shielding; radiation health physics; point source plume dispersal calculations; alternative technologies for production of radioisotopes; chemical and physical properties of isotope compounds; nuclear reactor characteristics; high temperature material stability and inter-material compatibility; weapon and delivery system integration; a variety of heat transfer regimes including radiation, conduction, convection, nucleate boiling, and film boiling; thermal/mechanical stress analysis (steady-state and transient); rock physical and thermodynamic properties as a function of temperature; detection/mapping of deeply buried facility spaces; and more.; The following disciplinary analyses were composed into a multidisciplinary analysis code for a RIPTP: packing of RIPTP components in available volume; close-contact melting analysis; transmutation of isotope species by neutron activation; reactor neutron economy; radioisotope power generation through decay; metamodelled radiation shielding calculations for a RIPTP; and steady state thermal analyses for a RIPTP in various scenarios.; Filtering of radioisotopes for potential suitability, their possible production mechanisms, state of technological development, and multidisciplinary analysis code predicted performance lead to the identification of Thulium-170 as the best isotope for powering a RIPTP using present-day technology and technical data. Ytterbium-169 was identified as an alternative isotope offering the potential for significant potential improvements over Thulium-170 in radiological safety as well as RIPTP performance and producibility. Production, however, was determined to require identification of a cost effective technology for highly enriching Ytterbium-168 from its low natural abundance.; Performance analysis of the identified baseline Thulium-170 RIPTP suggested that the predicted low