National Ignition Facility Quality Assurance Program Plan. Revision 1

Abstract

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a key constituent of the Department of Energy`s Stockpile Stewardship Program. The NIF will use inertial confinement fusion (ICF) to produce ignition and energy gain in ICF targets, and will perform weapons physics and high-energy- density experiments in support of national security and civilian objectives. The NIF Project is a national facility involving the collaboration of several DOE laboratories and subcontractors, including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), and the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics (UR/LLE). The primary mission of the NIF Project is the construction and start-up operation of laser-based facilities that will demonstrate fusion ignition in the laboratory to provide nuclear-weapons-related physics data, and secondarily, to propagate fusion burn aimed at developing a potential source of civilian energy. To support the accomplishment of this very important mission, the LLNL Laser Directorate created the NIF Project Office to organize and bring about the Project. The NIF Project Office has established this Quality Assurance Program to ensure its success. This issue of the Quality Assurance Program Plan (QAPP) adds the requirements for the conduct of Title 11 design, construction, procurement, and Title III engineering. This QAPP defines and describes the program-the management system-for specifying, achieving, and assuring the quality of all NIF Project work consistent with the policies of the Laboratory and the Laser Directorate.