Basically 0 CAD models you see with color coding and a mesh are actually accurate. In order to mesh the geometry for finite element analysis, the geometry virtually always needs to be defeatured. So the cross sectional CAD model here is a nice curiosity but basically useless for any reverse engineering purposes which is the key reason this stuff is kept secret.
In Germany we say "The DIN knows non color". DIN is our standardization organization and informally also how their documents are called. I did finite element model preparation for a living many year ago and it did not only involve heavy defeaturing but interestingly also remeshing with quads. Renderers love triangles, FE solvers love boring quads.
Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
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Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#22And why wouldn't they? As wikipedia states, SNL's mission includes "roughly 70 areas of activity, including nuclear deterrence, arms control, nonproliferation, hazardous waste disposal, and climate change."
Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#23Basically 0 CAD models you see with color coding and a mesh are actually accurate. In order to mesh the geometry for finite element analysis, the geometry virtually always needs to be defeatured. So the cross sectional CAD model here is a nice curiosity but basically useless for any reverse engineering purposes which is the key reason this stuff is kept secret.
In Germany we say "The DIN knows non color". DIN is our standardization organization and informally also how their documents are called. I did finite element model preparation for a living many year ago and it did not only involve heavy defeaturing but interestingly also remeshing with quads. Renderers love triangles, FE solvers love boring quads.
Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#24This thing could be a test object that doesn't work as an actual nuclear warhead but is similar enough to validate the discussed software: real-world crash tests match software simulations, and being accurate at simulating the dummy is a guarantee of being accurate at simulating classified weapon designs.
> Someone reminded me of something I had seen years ago: the British nuclear program at Aldermaston, when it has published on its own computer modeling in the past, used a sort of “bomb mockup” that looks far more deliberately “fake” than this Sandia one. I offer this up as what I would think is a more “safe” approach than something that looks, even superficially, like a “real” secondary design:
> This is called the MACE (Modal Analysis Correlation Exercise) assembly, and was created by the UK Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in the 1990s to serve as a sort of a Utah Teapot of weapons structural modeling: a benign shape that could be used to test aspects of the code that would nonetheless tell you if the code would work for real weapons assemblies.
Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#25That thing is supposed to be a logo? I'm reminded of CGP Gray's videos about flags. https://www.youtube.com/user/cgpgrey/videos Like this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4w6808wJcU About US state flags
Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#26Overall this looks like someone asked a physics undergraduate to spend an hour imagining roughly how the well-known schematic might be fitted inside a real warhead case. It probably is exactly that. I can't imagine that showing it to the North Koreans advanced their nuclear programme by any more than fifteen minutes.
Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#27Re: Did Sandia use a thermonuclear secondary in a product logo?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a diagram or mock-up, it's a direct representation of the real thing for computer simulations, similar to CAD. The dimensions and shape of the components are accurate. And the author is calling it a logo because the picture is used to represent and advertise the software.
It's a product diagram on a presentation slide. Hopefully meant to be read on handouts or proceedings. A logo is the Sierra stylized text in the lower center. And the two others in the slide's footer. That Sandia might use, what was obviously intended as a diagram as a logo is a whole other thing but doesn't make it one. As long as all representation of that thing are that big and readable one can assume they were no…