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That will depend on many variables (e.g. type of computer, detail of simulation, period of simulated, complexity of weapon being tested).

A few years ago I wrote a very simplified program to simulate a basic spherical implosion atomic bomb weapon design using one of my small Linux based desktop computers running an ARM processor. A typical simulation of roughly the first 20 microsecond of the explosion (beginning from the last few microseconds of the implosion compression of the core) took 2 to 3 minutes of realtime. I made no attempt to develop code for the complex multistage hydrogen bomb designs or even boosted fission designs due to the difficulty of writing the equations for ignition of thermonuclear fusion.

Using the supercomputers that the weapons labs have available they can simulate the full process from the firing of the detonators on the outside of the explosive lenses for several minutes after the complete vaporization of the outer casing. While I have no access to these Top Secret Restricted Data classified programs and thus cannot give a reasonable estimate of how much realtime it takes for one weapons simulation, even if it takes hours (or days) it is much less expensive to run these simulations than to take the weapon, all the instrumentation, the test crew, etc. to a test site and perform the test for real.

The important issue is not the time to simulate but the cost ratio between simulation and testing.

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Q: How long does it take to simulate a nuclear weapons test?
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