The Khan Research Laboratories is a federally funded research and development complex located in Kahuta, Punjab, Pakistan. Established in 1976, the laboratory is best known for its central role in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and its understanding of nuclear science. Established in 1976 as Engineering Research Laboratories, it was originally organized as a top-secret industrial plant dedicated to enrichment as a response to the India's detonation of its first nuclear bomb in 1974. The site was chosen for its remote yet relatively accessible location near Rawalpindi. In the 1970s, the site was the cornerstone of the first stage of Pakistan's atomic bomb program, and serves as the center for conducting the nuclear scientific research. It is globally known for its research in gas centrifuges to produce the enriched uranium; and in past, it has competed with the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science & Technology on wide variety of weapon designs but it is now have focused in civilian missions, including the national security, fusion science and supercomputing.
History
As an aftermath of the India's first nuclear test, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) launched the studies on isotope separation through gas method by setting the plant as Project-706 under Bashiruddin Mahmood, a nuclear engineer, in 1974. In 1976, the difficulties encountered in preliminary studies under Mahmood on understanding the equation of state of uranium indicated the need for a dedicated laboratory solely to that purpose. Work on establishing the laboratory was initiated by the army's Engineer-in-Chief who selected Brigadier Zahid Ali Akbar to conduct the topographic survey. Because the experiments were considered too dangerous to conduct in a major city, Brig. Akbar recommended relocating operations to an isolated, remote mountainous area and selected Kahuta, a short distance from Rawalpindi. On 31 July 1976, the laboratory was established as Engineering Research Laboratories (ERL) with Abdul Qadeer Khan as its principal investigator. The officers and personnel from the Corps of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (EME) were central in working and supporting the operations of the lab with Major-General Ali Nawab acting its principle engineer in 1979. More broadly, the ERL was intended to spur innovation and provide competition to the weapon design with the second lab in Nilore running under the PAEC's contract. Under Abdul Qadeer Khan, the work on equation of state of uranium began with drs. G. D. Alam, Tasneem Shah, and Anwar Ali who served as co-principle investigators at Kahuta. Initially, a large numbers of centrifuges were deployed but they were scaled down to few centrifuges after revised critical mass calculations on equation of state of uranium by Abdul Qadeer Khan and his co-investigators in 1980s. Its official name was changed to the Khan Research Laboratory in 1981 by Presidential decree of President and General Zia Ul Haq, which also allowed its status as a national defense laboratory.
Uranium research Globally, the KRL has a prestige in conducting research into properties and behavior of uranium to learn how uranium is scaled to industrial-to-weapon-grade level and how its equation of state changes under the extreme pressure and temperature. For such investigation, principle investigators employed the Zippe method (local designation: Khan Centrifuge) that runs about 100,000 rpm on continuous at an average of 10 years. The Uranium (U92) is a naturally occurring element that can be found in low levels within all rock, soil, and water. The Natural uranium (Unat) consists of three isotopes, Uranium-238 (U238), which is 99.28% natural abundance, the Uranium-235 (U235), which is subject of interest for energy measurement available only at 0.71%, and uranium-234, with proportion of 0.0054%. The Uranium-235 is fissile but at 0.71% it cannot sustain the chain reaction in a nuclear weapon environment, which requires the 90% of U235 but remains uncontrolled whose reaction takes place in a short amount of time– in a nanosecond time. For this purposes, the gas centrifuge methods using the vacuum technology were established but this method took several years to master, and it was not until the 1985 when the highly enriched uranium (HEU) was first made available. The computer simulations and experiments on uranium are conducted by KRL to understand the structural, electrical, material, and chemical properties as well as uranium fused allows and to determine how these materials change over time under temperature and pressure difference.
Negative publicity The laboratory has attracted negative publicity from a number of events, mainly due to its past research affiliation with North Korea and China. In 1996, the Clinton administration accused China of approving the tender released for the KRL on the acquisition of specially-made magnetic rings for special suspension bearings mounted at the top of rotating centrifuge cylinders. In 1999, a visit by the Saudi dignitaries accompanied by the Sharif administration personnel to the laboratory also garnered further negative publicity at the Western media that raised fears of proliferation in the middle east. In 2003, the Pakistani nuclear physicist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, was accused of (and later pardoned) for mishandling the classified information on the weapons-related designs and the gas centrifuges passed onto the Libya, North Korea, Iran and China in early 1980s that were taken from the lab's computers.
Medical works In order to provide medical facilities to its employees and general public, KRL operates a 350-bed hospital in Islamabad. The hospital provides services for both inpatients and outpatients. The hospital is providing emergency care, surgery, surgical ICU, pediatrics, and specialist OPDs among other medical services. The hospital also encompasses a blood bank, laboratories, radiology department, and pharmacy as well. The administration structure of KRL Hospital is semi-autonomous and it currently operates under Kahuta Research Laboratories (KRL) Welfare Trust.
Extended research
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