Shock Wave Generator for Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program: More than a Feasibility Study | Institute for Science and International Security

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2021-07-03 13:00:05

The Iranian Nuclear Archive reveals that under its early 2000s nuclear weapons program known as the “Amad Plan,” Iran was developing and manufacturing a key nuclear weapon subcomponent called a “shock wave generator.” The shock wave generator is a multi-point initiation (MPI) system, which has the purpose of uniformly initiating a spherical shell of high explosives, or the “main charge,” which in turn compresses the nuclear core made from weapon-grade uranium to achieve a supercritical mass for a nuclear explosion. Iran’s Nuclear Archive, a significant portion of which Israel seized in January 2018, is a curated set of highly sensitive nuclear weapons information detailing the Amad program’s effort to develop and manufacture five nuclear weapons and prepare an underground nuclear test site for possible use.

The development of the shock wave generator, also known as distributor, contributed importantly to Iran’s miniaturization of a nuclear weapons design.

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