VNIITF

Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Russian Federal Nuclear Center – Zababakhin All-Russia Research Institute of Technical Physics” (also known as “RFNC-VNIITF” and “VNIITF”) is one of the key enterprises of State Atomic Energy Corporation “Rosatom” that ensures sovereignty and safety of the Russian Federation and maintains peace on earth.

Due to the efforts of several generations of RFNC-VNIITF employees, more than half of the current nuclear stockpile is represented by the items developed at our Institute. At that, VNIITF provides the designer and warranty supervision of the nuclear charges and weapons throughout their life cycle, from initial design to disassembly and disposal of major constituents.

During the period when underground nuclear tests were conducted, VNIITF developed most part of nuclear charges, nuclear weapons, and industrial-purpose nuclear explosive devices that had superior performance characteristics, for example:

The smallest nuclear charge for the artillery projectile;
The most light-weight warhead for the strategic nuclear forces;
The most robust and heat-resistant peaceful nuclear charge;
The most shock-resistant nuclear charge;
The most efficient nuclear charge in terms of fissile materials consumption;
The ‘cleanest’ peaceful nuclear charge when almost 100% of energy is produced due to nuclear fusion of light elements;
The most low-yield irradiator charge.

RFNC-VNIITF took an active part in the National program for peaceful use of nuclear explosions and was a key stakeholder in some related activities concerning development and implementation. Out of 124 peaceful explosions carried out in the USSR, 75 were conducted with the help of 80 nuclear explosive devices developed at VNIITF.

These prominent results were largely achieved due to the ingenious decisions and pioneering contribution of great scientists who worked at RFNC-VNIITF, namely Eugeny N. Avrorin, Eugeny I. Zababakhin, Boris N. Litvinov, Lev P. Feoktistov, Kirill I. Shchelkin and others.

Having taken up the torch from the ‘founding fathers’ of VNIITF, new generations of scientists, research engineers, and technicians make their own contribution to the development of up-to-date nuclear charges and weapon systems that form the basis of Russia’s strategic and non-strategic nuclear forces.

The mission of our enterprise is to meet scientific and engineering challenges in order to ensure and maintain safety and security of nuclear weapons of the Russian Federation.

RFNC-VNIITF supports and develops 35 baseline critical technologies of Nuclear Weapons Stockpile of the Russian Federation, which are of great importance for national defense and security.

Nowadays, VNIITF represents an enterprise comprising research and design organizations, pilot-production plants, and infrastructure units. Under the Decrees of the President of the Russian Federation, “High Voltage Research Center” (VNITs) and “All-Russian Electrotechnical Institute” (VEI) were affiliated to VNIITF in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

State-of-the-art equipment, unrivalled expertise, and unique scientific capabilities allow VNIITF to meet challenges not only in the defence industry, but also in the field of nuclear power engineering, nuclear medicine, HPC and simulation technologies.

In the field of nuclear power engineering, RFNC-VNIITF carries out a whole range of projects including unprecedented study aimed to enhance hydrogen safety at NPPs, exceptionally challenging issues of spent nuclear fuel transportation, development of computer models and codes for justification of technical and process design solutions when designing and implementing the process modules of the Pilot Demonstration Energy Complex (PDEC).

As for nuclear medicine, RFNC-VNIITF has been working in this field for several decades now. We put Radiopharmaceutical production facility into operation to produce fluorodeoxyglucose used in radionuclide diagnostics. More than 1200 patients underwent treatment at our Neutron Therapy Center.

VNIITF is the leader among the domestic software developers in the sphere of High-Performance Computing (HPC), the whole life cycle of mathematical simulation and computer-aided engineering, IT-infrastructure development, and cybersecurity. Some of our software products, namely modular medium- and large- scale Data Processing Centers (DPC), are patent-protected.

Results of work made by VNIITF are highly praised and duly appreciated by our government.

Awards

Under the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 29, 1966, VNIIP (currently RFNC-VNIITF) was awarded the Order of Lenin for contribution to the development and production of innovative special-purpose equipment and successful fulfillment of plans for the period of 1959-1965.

Under the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of October 16, 1980, VNIIP was awarded the Order of the October Revolution for contribution to the development of innovative special-purpose equipment.

Under the Executive Order of the President of the Russian Federation No.135-rp of April 7, 2005, RFNC-VNIITF was awarded a commendation for contribution to the development of nuclear industry.

Under the Executive Order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 442-r of March 28, 2010, RFNC-VNIITF was awarded a Certificate of Merit for invaluable contribution to the development of nuclear industry and strengthening the defence capability of the country.

Under the Executive Order of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 264-r of March 1, 2012, RFNC-VNIITF was awarded a commendation for significant contribution to the development of nuclear industry and national security protection.

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