Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame have received $27.5-million worth of Department of Energy grants to study high-energy physics potentially applicable to nuclear-weapon sustainment, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced Tuesday.
Cornell’s Multi-University Center of Excellence for Pulsed-Power-Driven High Energy Density Science will get $15-million to study high energy density plasmas from pulsed power generators.
Notre Dame’s Actinide Center of Excellence will receive $12.5-million for research in nuclear chemistry and radioactive materials “through the integration of physical experiments and computer simulation,” according to an NNSA press release.
The grants are part of the NNSA Stewardship Science Academic Alliances program: a roughly $33-million-a-year program that aims to funds research projects at universities “of relevance to stockpile stewardship.”
Since the United States ended nuclear-explosive tests in 1992, the Department of Energy has had to verify the health and potency of the U.S. deterrent with non-nuclear simulations of nuclear explosions, chemical experiments, and computer modeling.
The Donald Trump administration requested roughly $34 million for Stewardship Science Academic Alliances in fiscal 2018, which is about $1 million more than the program received from Congress in the last budget. The program is one of two nested in NNSA’s roughly $50-million-a-year Academic Alliances and Partnerships budget.
