IPFM International Panel on Fissile Materials

Selected Articles from Science & Global Security

Science & Global Security is an international journal for peer-reviewed scientific and technical studies relating to arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation policy. Its goals are to help create a common understanding of the technical basis for new policy initiatives and to provide an archival source for further works of scholarship and policy analysis. Science & Global Security is published by Taylor and Francis.

Weapon-Usability of Fissile Materials

	Explosive Properties of Reactor-Grade Plutonium, by C. Mark with an appendix by F. v. Hippel and E. Lyman, 1993 (PDF, 2,7 MB) The discussion in this article focuses on the question of whether a terrorist organization or a threshold state could make use of plutonium recovered from light-water-reactor fuel to construct a nuclear explosive device having a significantly damaging yield.

	On the Proliferation Potential of Uranium Fuel for Research Reactors at Various Enrichment Levels, by A. Glaser, 2006 (PDF, 386 KB) This article reviews the rationale of selecting an enrichment of just less than 20% (low-enriched uranium) as the preferred enrichment level for research reactor fuel in order to minimize overall proliferation risks.

Disposition and Elimination of Fissile Materials

	Fissile Materials: Global Stocks, Production and Elimination, by H. Feiveson, A. Glaser, Z. Mian and F. von Hippel, SIPRI Yearbook, 2007, Appendix 12C (PDF 1.2MB)

A Comprehensive Approach to Elimination of Highly-Enriched-Uranium From All Nuclear-Reactor Fuel Cycles, by F. von Hippel, 2004 (PDF, 163 KB)
Recently, there have been signs of increasing political support within the U.S. for a more comprehensive effort to help eliminate HEU from civilian nuclear fuel cycles worldwide. This article provides a preliminary map of the territory that would be covered by such a program.

Verification of Nonproduction of Fissile Materials

U.S.-Russian Bilateral Transparency Regime to Verify Nonproduction of HEU, by O. Bukharin (PDF, 79 KB)
A bilateral U.S.-Russian regime to confirm that that neither country secretly produces fresh highly enriched uranium (HEU) would be an important nonproliferation and nuclear threat reduction initiative. It would close the remaining loophole in the emerging system of international controls of fissile materials and make reductions in the U.S. and Russian HEU stockpiles irreversible.

Books (full text)

	The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, compiled and edited by S. Glasstone and P. J. Dolan, Third Edition, 1977 (PDF, 40,1 MB) Prepared and published by the United States Department of Defense and the Energy Research and Development Administration. The authoritative source on every physical aspect of nuclear explosions.

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation, by A. Krass, P. Boskma, B. Elzen and W. A. Smit, 1983 (external link)
This classic volume, originally published by SIPRI in 1983, is now available again in electronic form. This book presents the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by the then recent advances in uranium enrichment technology.

	Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks, U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), August 1993 (PDF, 2.0 MB) This report describes what nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons can do, analyzes the consequences of their spread for the United States and the world, and summarizes technical aspects of monitoring and controlling their production.

Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), December 1993 (PDF, 5.7 MB)
This report, a companion volume to OTA’s report Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risks, reviews the technical requirements for countries to develop and build nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, along with the systems most capable of delivering these weapons to distant or defended targets.