WarSclerotic

Iran’s Advanced Centrifuges – Assessment and Significance.

Rafael Ofek

4/2/2013

According to Reuters (January 31, 2013), Iran informed the IAEA by letter of its plans to install and operate advanced centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility near Natanz. The report did not include details about the identity of the advanced model or the amount of centrifuges that Iran intends to install.

However, despite the vague information in the Reuters, report, the IAEA’s reports from the latter half of 2012 might shed some light on Iran’s advanced centrifuge plan. In recent years, Iran has developed two advanced versions of centrifuges: IR-2m, which is a second-generation Iranian centrifuge model, and the fourth-generation IR-4. The rotor in the IR-1 model, Iran’s first generation of centrifuges, which is the primary component in the centrifuge, is composed of an aluminum alloy. However, the rotor in the advanced models is not metallic, but made of carbon fibers. In one of the photos of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, apparently when he visited a factory for the production of centrifuge components, he is seen holding a centrifuge rotor made of carbon fiber. The use of carbon fiber makes it possible to increase the diameter of the rotor, and even significantly increase its rotation speed – thus increasing the yield of the centrifuge considerably. However, at least from the Iranian perspective, while the IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges are advanced, the technology they are based on was actually developed in the 1970s and 1980s. They are very much copies of second-generation centrifuges, which is itself based on German design, just as the IR-1 is a copy of first-generation Pakistani centrifuges, which are based on Dutch design.

The technological knowledge in the field of centrifuges was sold to Iran in the late 1980s and the 1990s by Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who gained the knowledge while working at a Dutch research facility that took part in the URENCO centrifuge project, which was shared by Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. In the 1970s, Dr. Khan returned to Pakistan, after cunningly copying the URENCO programs and smuggled them into the country. It is quite possible that detailed technological knowledge that helped in the development of the advanced Iranian centrifuges made its way to Iran from the Iraqi centrifuge program, via Iranian intelligence agents who worked in Iraq before the First Gulf War and afterwards.

The centrifuges developed by Iraq before 1990 were also based on the German centrifuge, according to plans that were covertly acquired by the country from German experts. In any case, the operation of the advanced centrifuges might be an advancement from Iran’s perspective, by significantly increasing its uranium-enrichment capability. According to David Albright, manager of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, who deals with intelligence assessments on the issue of nuclear circulation around the world, the yield from Iran’s advanced centrifuge models is five times higher than that of the IR-1 model. According to the IAEA reports, the pilot plant of the Natanz facility has advanced centrifuges installed for a while now. As of the second half of 2012, some of them are operational when fed UF6 gas. The status of these centrifuges, as of August 2012, is as follows: a small and experimental cascade of 10 IR-4 centrifuges, which was operated from time to time to carry out tests and measurements; another cascade of 123 IR-4 centrifuges, installed but not operated; and a third cascade of 162 IR-2m centrifuges, which were installed but not operated.

In the past, the Iranian cascades contained 164 centrifuges. However, according to a new design, the new cascades have 174 centrifuges. It is therefore likely that Iran’s recent announcement to the IAEA comes due to the vast experience acquired in Natanz in the experimental operation of the advanced centrifuges, and in Iran’s view that the time has come for their regular operation in industrial scope. Iran’s latest announcement to the IAEA was apparently vague. It lacks details on the number of advanced centrifuges Iran intends to operate soon, nor did it provide the rate of uranium enrichment that it will be used for. The IAEA reports that have been published so far also lack information about the amount of advanced centrifuges produced by Iran thus far, and about the production capability of the Iranian factories, which produce and assemble the centrifuges.

In any case, it can be assumed that Iran will operate at least the two cascades in Natanz in the near future; Most of the advanced centrifuges have already been installed in these cascades – whose full installation may have already concluded, or will conclude soon. It is possible that these things will be made clear in the IAEA report that will be published in the coming month.

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Lt. Col. (Res.) Dr. Rafael Ofek is an expert of physics and Iranian technology. He has served in the past as a senior researcher and analyst in the Israeli intelligence community.

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