|
The Khan Research Laboratories,〔 previously known at various times as Project-706, Engineering Research Laboratories, and Kahuta Research Laboratories, is a Pakistan Government's multi-program national research institute, managed and operated under the scrutiny of Pakistan Armed Forces, located in Kahuta, Punjab Province. The laboratories are one of the largest science and technology institutions in Pakistan, and conduct multidisciplinary research and development in fields such as national security, space exploration, and supercomputing.〔 While the laboratories remain highly classified, the KRL is most famous for its research, development, and production of Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU), using gas centrifuge (Zippe-type) technological methods roughly based on the model of the Urenco Group—the technology brought by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who worked there as a senior scientist.〔 Since its inception, there has been a large number of employed technical staff members with majority being physicists and mathematicians, assisted by engineers (both army and civilians), chemists, and material scientists.〔 Professional scientists and engineers are also delegated to visit this institute after going under close and strict screening and background check, to participate as visitors in scientific projects. During the midst of the 1970s, the laboratories were the cornerstone of the first stage of Pakistan' atomic bomb project, being one of the various sites where the classified scientific research on atomic bombs were undertaken.〔 ==History== (詳細はatomic bomb program focused on its primary efforts on producing and developing a weapons-grade plutonium device under the research led by Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). In 1974, India conducted a surprise nuclear test (''Smiling Buddha''), the PAEC launched a clandestine uranium enrichment project with nuclear engineer Sultan Mahmood becoming its director; Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan joined the program in 1974.〔 Work at the Kahuta site was initiated by Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.〔〔 After disagreeing with Sultan Mahmood's calculation and feasibility report submitted to the government, Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto detached the work from the PAEC and made Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan the director of the uranium enrichment project in 1976. The uranium project was moved to Kahuta where the project was established as Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL). According to Dr. A.Q. Khan, materials were imported from Europe with the help of two procurement officers; one of them was Engineer Ikramul Haq Khan, deputed to KRL via Gen Ali Nawab, Chairman POF (1976-1981). The other was Mr. Jamil who worked out of the office of PATLO in the Pakistan High Commission in London.〔http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-279343-Unsung-heroes〕〔http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-278025-Unsung-heroes〕 Wanting a capable administrator, Bhutto asked the Chief of Army Staff for the selection, and the Engineer-in-Chief chose Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar to lead the program.〔 Because the experiments were deemed too dangerous to conduct in a major city, the operations were moved in a remote mountainous northern areas of Pakistan.〔 The entire site and the Kahuta was rebuilt by the Corps of Engineers under Lieutenant-General Zahid Ali Akbar, with logistics provided by Military Engineering Service.〔〔 Conducting a classified research, the facility was heavy secured by both the Pakistan Army and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF).〔 All employees needed badges to pass a checkpoint, and the laboratories are electronically fenced and guarded.〔 The ERL was intended to spur innovation and provide competition to the nuclear weapon-design at the PAEC.〔 Some renowned scientists preferably Dr. G.D. Alam (Theoretical physicist) from PAEC had joined the ERL and enriched the uranium at Kahuta. Dr. Anwar Ali and some other scientists also support him.〔 The site quickly installed thousands of gas centrifuges, using the Zippe method, to ran at about 65,000rpm for an average of 10 years. The U235 contains only ~0.7% enriched material is brought to more than 90.0% through three stages of enrichment, leaving the original material depleted from 0.7% to 0.2%, which then now at both civilian and military-grade.〔 In 1970s, the ERL heavily depended on URENCO's method but lessened the dependence on 1979 after local methods were developed. Unverified claims were made by KRL in 1983–84 of conducting weapon-design tests.〔 After visiting the site on May 1981, President Zia-ul-Haq renamed the ERL as in the honor of its founder and senior scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.〔 The KRL established a system of numerical control to control the centrifuges in 1983. By 1986, the KRL began producing the HEUs as well as developing the Krytron while classified work on the uranium weapon-design took place with 6UF being reduced to uranium metal and machined into weapon pits. The KRL began publishing series of academic articles on numerics and computational methods on centrifuge design, including a 1987 article co-authored by Qadeer Khan on techniques for balancing sophisticated ultracentrifuge rotors.〔Upadhyaya, Gopal S. (2011). "§Dr. A.Q. Khan of Pakistan". Men of Metals and Materials: My Memoires. Bloomington, Indiana, United States: iUniverse.com. p. 248pp. ISBN 9698500006.〕 Over in 1990s, KRL became a home of a number of the most high-performance supercomputer and parallel computing systems that were installed at the facility. A parallel Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) division was established which specialized in conducting high performance computations on shock waves in weapons effect from the outer surface to the inner core by using the difficult differential equations of the state of the materials used in the bomb under high pressure.〔 In an investigative reports published by NTI, the Chinese scientists were reportedly present at Kahuta in early 1980s— an unconfirmed indicator of Chinese assistance in the development of equipment at Kahuta.〔(Khan Research Laboratories )〕 In 1996, the U.S. intelligence maintained that China provided magnetic rings for special suspension bearings mounted at the top of rotating centrifuge cylinders. In 2005, it was revealed that the President Zia's military government had the KRL to run a project of HEU programme in the Chinese nuclear program.〔 Abdul Qadeer Khan also alleged that "KRL has built a centrifuge facility for China in Hanzhong province".〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Khan Research Laboratories」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|