10:00am Sunday 25th July 2010
By Lucie Richards
BOSSES at the Aldermaston nuclear bomb factory want to build a replacement research facility to help calculate how materials will behave in a warhead.
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has applied for planning permission to West Berkshire Council to construct a replacement hydrodynamics research facility on its Aldermaston site.
The proposed development, known as Hydrus, includes an operations building, support building and associated electrical substation, which would facilitate hydrodynamics research. The cost is not being revealed because of “commercial sensitivity”.
Hydrodynamics is the science of forces acting on or exerted by fluids and contributes to the safety and reliability of the UK’s nuclear deterrent, which AWE manufactures and maintains on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.
During the complex phases of a nuclear weapon, solid materials behave like fluids when they are subjected to extreme levels of pressure and shock.
AWE conducts hydrodynamic experiments where small amounts of material are subjected to explosive shocks in specially designed chambers, which are photographed by state-of-the-art X-ray machines. The information captured is used in calculations to predict how materials will behave in the warhead.
The replacement, purpose-built facility would provide a secure environment for continued hydrodynamics operations when existing facilities reach the end of their operational lives. Hydrus will not lead to any new jobs, but about 50 existing members of staff would be relocated there.
Hydrodynamics research will continue in the existing buildings until Hydrus is working. If approved, AWE envisages the project would be built and commissioned by around 2017.
The plans have been submitted with a Defence Exempt Environmental Appraisal, which addresses the principal environmental issues of the planning proposal.
Andrew Jupp, AWE’s infrastructure director, said: “The proposed Hydrus development allows rationalisation of the floor space currently used by existing hydrodynamic operations; creates an opportunity for better working conditions for employees and improved overall environmental performance. It will also ensure AWE’s continued expertise in this important scientific field.”
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