The advanced modeling tools developed through this Grand Challenge are an enabling technology that will allow future particle accelerators to be designed with reduced cost, reduced risk, improved reliability and improved efficiency. The projects that this effort supports will have significant societal, economic, and scientific impacts. The societal impacts are related to both environmental and national security-related issues. Benefits to the environment are based on the proposed use of accelerators for nuclear waste transmutation and plutonium disposal. Benefits to national defense are based on the use of accelerators for tritium production and Science Based Stockpile Stewardship. Economic impacts include both energy-related and industrial issues. Accelerator-driven fission energy production schemes have the potential to produce clean, safe energy without critical assemblies and in accord with non-proliferation concerns. In the area of fundamental science, high resolution accelerator modeling is crucial to the development of next-generation spallation neutron sources for materials science and biological science research, as well as the design of next-generation accelerators for high energy physics, including linear colliders. The results of this Grand Challenge will have an impact on DOE missions in the Office of Energy Research, Defense Programs, and Environmental Management.
Back to main page.
Salman Habib / T-8 / LANL / habib@lanl.gov / revised January 98