Research and engineering

Design Bureaus are elements within the RFNC - VNIIEF organization.

Their functions are to:

• develop nuclear and conventional weapons components, automatics and instrumentation;
• assist in preparation for and conduct of design testing on the test grounds inside or outside the Institute;
• study nuclear weapons safety problems and implement the relevant safety technologies;
• provide the stewardship of nuclear weapons and components throughout their life cycle;
• solve applied mechanics problems in various fields of science and engineering.

The Design Bureaus provided direct input to:

• advance in calculation methods and theory for structural strength and stability in thermal environments ranging from normal temperatures to those produced by fire, or an aircraft traversing the Earth atmosphere, etc.;
• development of the computation methods for temperature fields in structures given long-term warm weather conditions and a short-term experiment. The computations have been verified by a series of experiments using plasmatrons and a special gasdynamic test bench;
• development of numerical and experimental methods for inertial load testing and evaluation of the designed products;
• development of algorithms and programs to calculate the frequency response characteristics and stress-strain state of various devices under stationary mass forces and steady-state harmonic vibration;
• development of simulation techniques for the combined effects of kinematic vibration and quasistatic loads;
• problems being solved with comprehensive software support for various design applications.

Good results have been achieved in radiation resistance study of equipment, and design of thermal and meteorite protection using advanced composite materials, vessels and containers to hold explosion debris, or explosive valves and gates for emergency closure of 2 m diameter pipes within fractions of a second, pressure-driven actuators of 0.1 s response, safe detonating cords and derivative systems and devices, and flexible jet-charge devices of modular configuration for various uses.

A suite of technologies has been designed that ensure high degree of safety for the nuclear warheads in manufacturing, shipping and operation.

Significant progress has been made in design of initiation techniques.

This includes the following:

• safe low-voltage and high-voltage electrodetonators, and detonators triggered by optical quantum generators with microseconds-scale response and high stability and reliability of operation,
• electric igniters and their derivative firing devices insensitive to statics;
• explosive automatics to operate switches, circuit-breakers, shutoffs and other actuators.

Also, the VNIIEF design activity includes the following important topics:

• development of electronic and cryptographic equipment, radiation techniques for transients monitoring;
• development of design and engineering methods for microelectronics using hybrid-film technology, computer-aided design of electronics;
• design of the induction-type or capacitive measuring instruments for vibration and shock, relative displacements, and seismic disturbances in wide amplitude and frequency ranges, and mobile instrumentation packages;
• theory and experiments to study the impact of solid bodies and associated behaviors and strength and reliability calculations of the mechanical structures under static, shock or vibration loads.