Talk:Nuclear weapon design

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[edit]

Edited Advanced thermonuclear weapons designs on the issue of salted weapons not being developed or tested. The US conducted an atmospheric test of a salted weapon during Operation Redwing. Information can be found on http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Redwing.html under the Flathead shot.

Everything I've seen on Flathead (which isn't much) suggests that it was just a typical Fission-Fusion-Fission. The "salted" designation by the gov't just means the uranium jacket, as far as I can tell, which isn't the same thing meant by "salted" in the context of this article (which means adding some sort of non-fissile material which will absorb neutrons and so forth). So I've changed it to reflect this a bit more -- Flathead doesn't look like anything special, though it was messy. --Fastfission 05:22, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
Yea I thought about it afterwards and realized that there wasnt enough information to make a solid claim, specifically no information on the material used as the salt. I was going to revert it back to the original page, but I have been busy the last few days, thanks for fixing it up! If I can find any more information about Flathead I will add it to this discussion page.

I moved all that stuff about neutron bomb tactics, uses, etc. over to neutron bomb. I left the technical description here, but duplicated it in the neutron bomb article. Is this ok? how else should this be covered? -- lommer 04:11 16 May 2003 (UTC)

  • I deleted that section from this article. This one is too long anyway. jni 14:02, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I have three comments on the text, but I wont make changes as I am not a native english speaker.

  • Fusion releases even more energy per reaction than fission: There are many fusion reactions and some of them must proceed simultaneously, but the largest energy released by a single reaction is about 18MeV [1], which is much less than the energy released by a fission process (180MeV [2]). Even combined fusion reactions will certainly not reach this value.
  • The radiation pressure of the X-rays heats and pressurizes the deuterium enough to fuse into helium, and emit copious neutrons. The article does not mention the "spark plug", which is a second fission bomb in the centre of the lithium deuteride. It is needed to reach the high temperature after compression [3].
  • The Tsar Bomba was not a fission-fusion-fission bomb. The fusion tamper was made of lead. Moreover I doubt that it is appropriate to call a fission-fusion-fission bomb "advanced", because uranium is a natural choice for the fusion tamper and its use does not cause additional technical diffuculties in comparison to lead.--El 18:36 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"Fusion releases even more energy per reaction than fission, and can also be used as a source for additional neutrons."

"The amount of energy released through fusion is very small compared to the energy from fission, so the fusion chiefly increases the fission efficiency by providing a burst of additional neutrons."

There seems to be a contradiction there. Which is accurate? Omegatron 17:59, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think the idea is that fusion has more bang for the buck, but not as many bucks. That is, while fusion releases more energy per reaction, there's a lot less of it going on. Furrykef 07:16, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The second statement refers to the few grams of fussion material inserted into the pit more as a source of neutrons to amplify the fission reaction than as a source power in itself. The fussion reaction of a few grams is indeed swamped by the fission of many kilos of material. LiamE

Theres a few small gaps in this article:

"The milling machines used are so precise that they could cut the polished surfaces of eyeglass lenses" Clarification in 1/1000's of an inch or microns or whatever tolerance? This description doesnt actually give a good suggestion of just how tolerant that is. 1/100th of a human hair? or...?

In the first bombs ... (Explosive Lenses). And what is more common now, since then, as explosive lenses? I have made an edit in this article to address the issue raised above here . For those who want proof of the truth of what I said in my edit about implosion techniques which was wrongly riverted by certian wickis here:I have stated the source of the information in my edit for you . Pay attention to it:and you owe me an apology for your wrongful riversion of my edit on 8-13-2007 I assure you I can prove any edit, I make in any Wickipedia article about anything . If you want proof all you have to is play fair ,and ask me to show the proof of what I said to you .Tmayes1999

The largest modern fission-fusion-fission weapons... (Advanced thermonuclear weapons designs) This term is suddenly introduced, so there's a sense that somewhere between "staged tehrmonuclear weapons" and "advanced design", either a stage is missed out, or a description of F-F-F is needed, or some such?

Last, a lot of the latter part of the article isn't about weapons design at all. It should be moved to something like Nuclear Weapons Tactics or some such, its nothing to do with design.

Hope this helps FT2 10:50, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

Practical limitations of fission bombs

"A pure fission bomb is practically limited to a yield of a few hundred kilotons by the large amounts of fissile material needed to make a large weapon."

In light of the 700kt+ fission weapon test by the UK in the 50's (Orange Herald, 31 May 1957) shouldn't that be revised up a bit?

LiamE

  • According to [4], Orange Herald/Grapple 2 was a quasi-fusion/booster device along the lines of Joe 4, not a pure fission weapon. --Fastfission 17:45, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

The images of the gun-type and implosion bombs seem to be taken from globalsecurity.org and are probably not GPFL. The image of the Teller-Ulam bomb is pretty abysmal and likely from whyfiles.org, again probably not GPFL. I'm happy to work on new versions at some point but I thought I would point out why I was doing it. --Fastfission 18:53, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, they are all replaced, let me know if you'd like any modifications done to them. --Fastfission 19:17, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Prompt criticality

It is worth incorporating some information from prompt critical into this article. Essentially, when a neutron is absorbed by a fissile nucleus, the nucleus may undergo fission immediately or it may take some time. Nuclear reactors are difficult and dangerous to build because they must remain critical but not prompt critical. Fission bombs are difficult to build because they must go from being subcritical to prompt critical before the heat from being merely critical destroys them. --Andrew 00:03, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Slight Correction

Fusion releases even more energy per reaction than fission,

This is inherently incorrect. As aforementioned fission reactions actually convert significantly more mass into energy then fusion reactions do in a single reaction. The correct analogy is, fusion reactions release more energy per mass then fission reactions do. Fusion reactions are more powerful simply because exponentially more occur in the same space that a single fission reaction occurs in. Veloren 15:03, Mar 20, 2005 (UFT)

[edit] Old text from nuclear weapon

[edit] Common types

[edit] Fission bombs

The two basic fission weapon designs.
The two basic fission weapon designs.

Fission bombs derive their power from nuclear fission, where heavy nuclei (uranium or plutonium) split into lighter elements when bombarded by neutrons (producing more neutrons which bombard other nuclei, triggering a nuclear chain reaction). With each of those splits, an amount of energy thousands of times greater than that available from a chemical reaction is released. These are historically called atom bombs or A-bombs, though this name is not precise due to the fact that chemical reactions release energy from atomic bonds too, and fusion is no less atomic than fission. Despite this possible confusion, the term atom bomb has still been generally accepted to refer specifically to nuclear weapons, and most commonly to pure fission devices.

In general, fission bombs are powered by using chemical explosives to compress (implode) a sub-critical amount of either uranium-235 or plutonium into a dense, super-critical mass, which is then subjected to a source of neutrons. This begins an uncontrollable nuclear chain reaction, and produces a very large amount of energy. A more crude design for such a weapon is to have two sub-critical amounts of uranium-235 simply shot into each other inside a gun barrel. This approach, used in the weapon dropped on Hiroshima during World War II, is conceptually easier but inefficient and inherently more dangerous to maintain than an implosion weapon.

One pound of U-235 can release over 37 million million joules of energy. This is 82 terajoules per kilogram (TJ/kg). A typical duration of the chain reaction is 1 μs, so the power is 82 EW/kg (30 μW or 200 MeV/s per atom; related to the duration of one generation of the chain reaction: 3mW/atom, i.e., the power of a chain reaction just at criticality is 3mW in the case of consecutive fissions, one at a time).

[edit] Fusion bombs

A fusion bomb uses a fission device to trigger a secondary explosion.
A fusion bomb uses a fission device to trigger a secondary explosion.

Fusion bombs are based on nuclear fusion where light nuclei such as hydrogen and helium combine together into heavier elements and release large amounts of energy. Weapons which have a fusion stage are also referred to as hydrogen bombs or H-bombs because their fusion fuel is often a form of hydrogen, or thermonuclear weapons because fusion reactions require extremely high temperatures for a chain reaction to occur. This latter name can be somewhat confusing, as thermonuclear reactions can take place in nuclear weapons which are not considered "true" fusion bombs.

Generally speaking, hydrogen bombs work by having a "primary" device (a fission bomb) detonate and begin the fusion reactions in the "secondary" device (fusion fuel). A virtually limitless number of large "secondaries" can be chained together (each fusion reaction beginning the next) in this fashion, creating weapons with far larger yields than could be achieved with simple fission alone.

Thermonuclear devices can be phenomenally energetic; easily capable of releasing a thousand times the energy of a fission bomb (megaton range). Consequently, the power of a fusion bomb can achieve staggering levels, representing the highest power levels achievable by humans. For instance, the Tsar bomba released 50 megatons of energy, almost all produced by its final fusion stage. Since 50 Mt is 2.1x1017 J the power produced during the burn is around 5.3x1024 watts (5.3 yottawatts). This represents a power just greater than one percent of the entire power output of the Sun (3.86x10^26 watts)!

[edit] Dirty bombs

Main article: Dirty bomb

Dirty bomb is now a term for a radiological weapon, a non-nuclear bomb that disperses radioactive material that was packed in with the bomb. When the bomb explodes, the scattering of this radioactive material causes radioactive contamination, a health hazard similar to that of nuclear fallout. One of the most publicly stated fears of Western governments since the September 11, 2001 attacks has been the terrorist detonation of a dirty bomb in a populated area. Dirty bombs, similar to other enhanced fallout weapons of more technologically sophisticated design, are area denial weapons that can potentially render an area unfit for habitation for years or decades after the detonation. In the estimation of most analysts, though, the effect would be primarily psychological, and potentially economic if a costly clean-up effort was called for.

[edit] Nomenclature

Nuclear weapons are often described as either fission or fusion devices based on the dominant source of the weapon's energy. The distinction between these two types of weapon is blurred by the fact that they are combined in nearly all complex modern weapons: a smaller fission bomb is first used to reach the necessary conditions of high temperature and pressure to allow fusion to occur. On the other hand, a fission device is more efficient when a fusion core first boosts the weapon's energy. Finally, a fusion weapon may include a fission core (in addition to being externally compressed by fission explosion) in order to achieve more complete fusion (see nuclear weapon design for some description of all these variants). Since the distinguishing feature of both fission and fusion weapons is that they release energy from transformations of the atomic nucleus, the most accurate general term for all types of these explosive devices is "nuclear weapon".

[edit] Advanced thermonuclear weapons designs

The most powerful modern weapons include a fissionable outer shell of uranium. The intense fast neutrons from the fusion stage of the weapon will cause natural (that is unenriched) uranium to fission, increasing the yield of the weapon many times.

[edit] Cobalt bombs

The cobalt bomb uses cobalt in the shell, and the fusion neutrons convert the cobalt into cobalt-60, a powerful long-term (5 years) emitter of gamma rays, which produces major radioactive contamination. In general this type of weapon is a salted bomb and variable fallout effects can be obtained by using different salting isotopes. Gold has been proposed for short-term fallout (days), tantalum and zinc for fallout of intermediate duration (months). To be useful for salting, the parent isotopes must be abundant in the natural element, and the neutron-bred radioactive product must be a strong emitter of penetrating gamma rays.

The primary purpose of this weapon is to create extremely radioactive fallout to deny a region to an advancing army, a sort of wind-deployed mine-field. No cobalt or other salted bomb has ever been atmospherically tested, and as far as is publicly known none has ever been built. In light of the ready availability of fission-fusion-fission bombs, it is unlikely any special-purpose fallout contamination weapon will ever be developed. The British did test a bomb that incorporated cobalt as an experimental radiochemical tracer (Antler/Round 1, 14 September 1957). This 1 kt device was exploded at the Tadje site, Maralinga range, Australia. The experiment was regarded as a failure and not repeated.

The thought of using cobalt, which has the longest half-life of the feasible salting materials, caused Leó Szilárd to refer to the weapon as a potential doomsday device. With a 5yr half-life people would have to remain shielded underground for many years, effectively wiping out humanity. However this would require a massive (unrealistic) amount of such bombs, yet the public heard of it and there were numerous stories involving a single bomb wiping out the planet.

[edit] Neutron bombs

Main article: Neutron bomb

A final variant of the thermonuclear weapons is the enhanced radiation weapon, or neutron bomb, which is a small thermonuclear weapon in which the burst of neutrons generated by the fusion reaction is intentionally not absorbed inside the weapon, but allowed to escape. The X-ray mirrors and shell of the weapon are made of chromium or nickel so that the neutrons are permitted to escape. This intense burst of high-energy neutrons is a highly destructive mechanism, although the bomb will still produce damaging thermal and shock effects, only with a lower magnitude than a standard thermonuclear weapon. Neutrons are more penetrating than other types of radiation so many shielding materials that work well against gamma rays are less effective against neutrons. They are also more biologically harmful than gamma rays, and this knowledge led some to envision a weapon that would do little physical damage while killing all the people in a certain area (a so-called "landlord bomb"). This appears to be somewhat of an exaggeration, as the bomb would still create at least some significant blast and fire damage. The term "enhanced radiation" refers only to the burst of ionizing radiation released at the moment of detonation, not to any enhancement of residual radiation in fallout (as in the salted bombs discussed above).


[edit] Atom Bomb

It is a precise enough term, in that atom bombs _alter_ atoms into other atoms and this is their unique feature. The bit about chemical bonds is really not relevant.

All explosives are "atomic" -- they "alter atoms" in a variety of ways, whether it be their configurations, how they are bonded, how many electrons they have, etc. Nuclear weapons are unique in that they specifically alter the nucleus of the atoms, which is what you mean by "atoms into other atoms". Even in 1945 "nuclear" was seen as the correct terminology (Henry DeWolf Smyth was forced to refer to them as "atomic weapons" in the Smyth Report against his will), but "atomic" resonated more with early public knowledge about radiation (from, i.e. radium). It is in the same league as another proposition from the time which didn't take off, William Laurence's reference to them as "cosmic" weapons. --Fastfission 13:49, 16 July 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Efficiency

65.241.94.2 edited the text to read:

The most efficient pure fission bomb possible would still only consume ~25% of its fissile material before being blown apart, and can often be much less efficient (Fat Man only had an efficiency of 14%).

The changes were from 20% to ~25% (which sounds reasonable) and also from 1.4% to 14% (which is an order of magnitude!). Are the new numbers more correct?

Atlant 12:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

The 14% figure seems to be plausible. this estimate, and this estimate, and this estimate state that each weapon contained only about 6.5 kilograms of plutonium, of which roughly 1.1 kilograms fissioned (as can be calculated from the bomb yield, see this reference desk question doing that calculation for Little Boy. Therefore 14% seems reasonable. Little Boy was much, much less efficient. --Robert Merkel 13:38, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for checking!
Atlant 19:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
Looking at it, the point is perhaps more effectively illustrated by using Little Boy as an example of inefficiency (and it was only about 1.4% efficient). I'll make the change. --Robert Merkel


~~Mike Velasquez~~

I believe this has already been pointed out, but a comment could probably be added to the cobalt bomb mention since many stories speak about a single bomb wiping out the planet. It should be mentioned that the amount of cobalt would be enormous and not technologically practical.

I also want to point out that the Flathead test seems to have been a "salted" test, meaning a "dirty" weapon or a high-fission weapon. In this link, it is mentioned as being a 73% fission weapon, therefore "dirty". I think it must be taken into account that the Redwing tests were testing the Mk-28 warhead, a three-stage weapon and considered "dirty" or "salted" high fission weapons. It doesn't seem to be talking about a salting agent, besides the ones produced by high fission. Consider this:

"The configuration fired in this test was a "clean" (low fallout) version that used a lead tamper around the thermonuclear third stage. Only 15% of the energy yield was from fission. A "dirty" version of this design, the Bassoon Prime device, was later fired in Redwing Tewa. The predicted yield for Zuni was 2-3 Mt. In the dirty version,the fission yield was 87%, the highest known fission yield in any U.S. thermonuclear test"

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Redwing.html

The context of these tests seem to have been contrast betwe high fission and low-fission weapon and the amount of fallout they produced.

  • As the article notes, there have been a number of relatively "dirty" thermonuclear tests, with a big final fission stage. But this is not the same thing as a cobalt bomb. My understanding is that the doomsday device idea would not be limited by size, ala Strangelove's "When you

merely wish to bury bombs, there is no limit to the size," but beyond that I don't know the physical details. I've never seen anything about Flathead that suggested in convincing terms that it utilized anything other than a final fission stage. --Fastfission 20:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

  • As an aside, many of the other sources for cobalt bomb fantasy (such as On the Beach) considered that many bombs would be dropped by both sides, not a single doomsday bomb. --Fastfission 20:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Impracticality of the needed amount of cobalt

~~Mike Velasquez~~

That's true. I don't think I have the authority to make a change in the article, though. Maybe you can talk about the impractical amount of cobalt that would be needed in the article. I think it would be appropriate, since I have seen some people from doomsday websites advocate that a few bombs could get the enough amount, regardless of the enormous amount needed of cobalt, uneven distribution and so on.Nowadays, a good amount of info on nuclear weapons has been declassified and the miniaturization of devices obviously showed that weapons are not intended to have a "doomsday" effect. The article should probably be a little more specific, since it does not offer details and gives the impression that one or few of the current devices could get that effect. People from rense.com and other websites have cited this place as proof.I think the article should probaly be as scientfic as possible.

[edit] Possible mistake in the cobalt article

I have seen in the article of "cobalt", there is a mention that emissions of neutrons will convert iron into cobalt 60. If that were the case, many nuclear weapons tested that had steel cases such as Ivy Mike, would have produced nightmarish amounts of cobalt 60. Probably, it was meant to say that cobalt 59 turns into Cobalt 60 by the emission of neutrons, not iron or steel. Can somebody tell me if steel or iron really turns into cobalt 60 by neutron emission? I doubt that is the case.

Mike Velasquez 04:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

The version I'd heard was that cobalt 59 was transmuted to cobalt 60. Dusting off my copy of the rubber bible, I find that cobalt 59 represents virtually all naturally-occurring cobalt, and has a relatively large neutron capture cross-section (just shy of 20 barns), while most iron is iron 56, which would require four neutron captures to transmute, and which has a much lower neutron capture cross-section (2.5 barns). The heaviest naturally-occurring iron isotope is iron 58, which would still require two captures, and which has an even smaller capture cross-section and occurs in very minute quantities. So, I think it's safe to say it's a typo (though you'll still get _activation_ of the casing, as some of the iron and some of the alloying materials will get transmuted). --Christopher Thomas 17:19, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I meant in my comment in the cobalt article when I said some iron would probably be transmuted into cobalt 60 as part of the fission products, but it would not be a significant amount as the article gave the idea of. I agree some cobalt 60 would be produced, although no significant amounts and would not be a more abundant and significant risk than other fission products. The biggest problem and cause of fallout is the debris being kicked up by a groundburst. If significant amounts of Cobalt 60 were produced from the activation of the steel casing, that would be considered more dangerous than the activation of debris due to the metals in the ground. The fact that it is not so, clearly shows that cobalt 60 is not produced significantly from steel and why a cobalt bomb would require the use of natural cobalt in the case, not steel or iron that cannot produce cobalt 60 in great amounts.

Mike Velasquez 17:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Rather than re-editing your previous comments, it's generally considered good form to add a new comment instead. Otherwise it gets a bit tricky telling who said what and when. --Christopher Thomas 19:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the mistake, did not know it was not recommendable to edit comments. In any case, I think we have reached an agreement that there would be some cobalt 60 produced although not in significant amounts.You will find my previous comment in the "talk:cobalt" page. We could improve the cobalt article. Would you consider changing the article of the "metal" cobalt or should I go and make an specification into the small amount that would be produced from steel in contrast to a cobalt bomb?

MIke Velasquez 01:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I just caught up on this... something seems wrong here. You can't change the atomic number (number of protons and electrons) in an isotope by neutron capture. Neutron capture changes one isotope (say, Co-59) into another isotope (Co-60) of the same atomic number. Other elements are formed from that then decaying (say, emitting an alpha and dropping two units of atomic number and four of weight, to Mn-56).

The only way Iron will get turned into Cobalt is if it fuses with a hydrogen, deuterium, or tritium atom. For which, the activation energy level is truly insane (far higher than the fusion energy of D-T fusion). Heavier elements get made by large research particle accellerators, or inside of supernova star explosions. Nuclear weapons are generally D-T fusion to Helium on the Fusion side, and neutron capture and subsequent fission or decay on the fission side.

I need to go read the article in detail and see what it's really saying right now. Georgewilliamherbert 01:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

You very frequently end up changing the proton number, because the isotope produced by neutron capture will usually beta decay. In the case of iron, you'd get the miniscule fraction of iron 58 transmuted to iron 59, which beta decays to cobalt 59 with a half life of about 45 days. This doesn't help you get cobalt 60 from iron, of course (that would require absorbing two neutrons during the explosion, to iron 60, and would produce cobalt 60 very slowly, as iron 60 is much more stable than iron 59). Neutron capture followed by beta decay is the process by which breeder reactors turn uranium 238 into plutonium. --Christopher Thomas 07:08, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I should have been clearer. I know about beta decay and the production of Pu-239. The statement "The only way..." should have been followed by "...during the nuclear explosion process..." as the dual neutron capture scenario appears statistically improbable due to the initial small (0.3%) quantity of Fe-58 and the capture cross sections of Fe-58 and Fe-59, and the equally improbable triple neutron capture from Fe-57 to get up there. Beta decay of both fission daughter isotopes and neutron activated bomb materials following the detonation will give you a wide range of various isotopes including some Co-60, but is useless as a mechanism to produce a Co-60 radiological device. I should have been more precise to start with. Georgewilliamherbert 23:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the re-editing, won't do it again. In the discussion of iron, you mention iron 58, however, the biggest amount of it in natural abundance are iron 56,then iron 54 and then 57. What is the possibility of these capturing the necessary neutrons? I remember you mentioned that they have a much lower neutron capture crosssection, would they not capture the necessary amount or would they capture it but in a very insignificant amount (due to how unlikely it is) as to be negligible?

Mike Velasquez 19:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

As User:Georgewilliamherbert notes, the amount produced would be extremely low due to the low probability of two neutrons being absorbed by a single iron 58 atom during the explosion. If you want back of the envelope numbers, I can pull numbers out of thin air, but as they depend strongly on assumptions, they won't be very accurate.
For example, we can blindly assume that the absorption cross-section for iron 59 is about the same as that of iron 58 (on the order of 1 barn), as this is pretty typical for isotopes that are neither good absorbers nor neutron reflectors, but the real value could be off by orders of magnitude. We could assume that you'd get about one neutron produced per hundred iron atoms, based on assumed amounts of iron vs. fissile material in the bomb, but this depends strongly on construction of the bomb. We can assume that the neutron capture cross-section for the several-MeV neutrons emitted will be roughly of the same order as that for thermal neutrons, but resonances make this a very bad assumption. We can assume that the iron casing is about 1 cm thick, giving about 0.1 atom per barn of cross-sectional area, but this too can vary. This means we get about 0.001 neutron per barn of cross-sectional area. Given all of these questionable assumptions, any given iron 58 atom has a probability of 0.001 of absorbing a neutron being bred into iron 59, and that has a 0.001 probability of being bred into iron 60, for a total of one atom in a million of iron 58 turning into iron 60, which amounts to one atom out of about 300 million of all of the iron in the casing. Each year, only about one in 300,000 of these will beta decay into cobalt 60, meaning that if you set off your bomb, and checked every iron atom produced a year later, you'd find about one in 100 trillion turned into cobalt 60. Disclaimer: This could be off by at least three or four orders of magnitude due to all of the assumptions made, as indicated above. --Christopher Thomas 07:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking your time to answer my question I see. Even though these numbers may not be accurate,the amount produced would be very low and still comparable to other fission products due to the low probability of the absorption of two neutrons by an atom of iron 58.This without considering the miniscule amount of iron 58. I take it then, that the absorption of three, four or more neutrons as would be necessary for iron 57, iron 56 and iron 54 would be a lot more improbable.

Mike Velasquez 17:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Absorption of more neutrons would be extremely improbable, yes. If the bomb specced out above exploded in vacuum (no other matter around to activate), most of the radioactive byproducts would be the fission products themselves, not anything activated by neutrons (the neutrons would eventually decay into proton/electron pairs). In practice, you'll get some of the alloying materials in the casing (like manganese, nickel 62, and vanadium) being activated as beta emitters with lifetimes in a problematic range, and for a detonation in or near the ground, perhaps some activation of the material there, depending on rock composition and presence of other materials. A detonation high in the air mostly just rains down fission products and activated casing materials, as neither nitrogen nor oxygen can be easily activated by neutron radiation. Short-lived beta emitters are a considerable radiation hazard even when produced in fairly small quantities. --Christopher Thomas 20:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I just realized something. Even if the absorption of two neutrons happened, the half-life of iron 60 is 1.5E6 y. A significant amount of cobalt 60 would take many years to be produced from the iron 60 as the beta decay to cobalt 60 would be very slow and cobalt 60 produced would decay while more iron is decaying into cobalt. Considering the half-life of iron 60, its beta decay is not dangerous due to its long half-life and even the miniscule amount of iron 60 produced turning into cobalt 60, would be no danger at the pace it would be produced, compared to other activated materials and fission products, right?

Mike Velasquez 19:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

According to my (1975) copy of the Rubber Bibble, the half-life is 3e5 years, and I already factored that in (that's why I divided by 300,000 to find out how much would be transmuted after waiting one year, though this number is off by ln(2) now that I think about it). The other casing materials I noted above have much shorter half-lives (from tens of minutes to something like 90 years), and so are indeed much more of a problem in the fallout from an air burst (what little fallout there is). In practice you mostly run into problems when a bomb is let off near the ground with geology containing easily-activated elements. This can give you tons of radioactive ash raining down over a large area. --Christopher Thomas 20:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
As a point of information, modern bomb casings are probably high-Z (high atomic number) x-ray opaque material liners with a lightweight aluminum outer structural casing. Iron / steel aren't really the best engineering choice... Georgewilliamherbert 21:30, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If iron 60 has 3e5 years of half-life, I would think a mistake was probably made in the iron page. When it describes isotopes, it says that iron 60 has a half-life of 1.5E6 y.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron

I will check in other sources and then post a comment on what I find.

Mike Velasquez 21:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The T2 site agrees with 1.5E6 years. Georgewilliamherbert 22:01, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I have seen other sources with similar results.

60 1.5×10+6 years Beta-minus Decay 100.00

http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/iso026.html

Iron-60, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of just under 1.5 million years, can be readily produced only by high-mass stars just before they self-destruct in supernova explosions.

http://www.looksmartscience.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_5_112/ai_102275167

and from Phil Plait's site:

There are two amazing things about this finding, if it turns out to be correct. One is that iron-60 is radioactive, with a half-life of roughly a million years.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/stardust.html

I think the iron page is correct in the half-life of iron 60

Mike Velasquez 22:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It's quite possible that the longer half-life value is correct; my copy of the Rubber Bible is very old (hence the date citation). However, be advised that web page sources may be repeating inaccurate information as well (though T2 looks reputable). This doesn't change my numbers much, compared to the other uncertainties. Re. casing materials, aluminum mostly scatters neutrons, and is transmuted into stable isotopes of silicon that do an even better job of scattering, but it's usually alloyed with copper (which activates with a half-life of minutes for one isotope and hours for another) and other metals. --Christopher Thomas 22:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I hope T2 is reputable; they and JAERI are the reference sources of record for most isotope data these days... and the source of the data tables for computer modeling... Georgewilliamherbert 22:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for being a pain on you Chris. I have been discussing some of this stuff with some rense.com folks and want to have knowledgeable answers, I myself can't come up with. I thought that the division by 1.5E6 rather than 3e5 would certainly make a big difference as well as the other uncertainties, since the beta decay of iron 60 would be slower(although a half-life of 3e5 years would probably still make the amount of Cobalt 60 transmuted each year small and negligible). Therefore I presume, an slow conversion rate (3e5 or 1.5E6 years) seems to eliminate the danger of the produced Cobalt 60 ,even if hypothetically, there were huge amounts of iron 60 to be eventually converted in Cobalt 60, as in any given year only small amounts would be transmuted and since there would be decaying of a good amount of cobalt 60 each year as more is produced) , therefore the danger of cobalt 60 would be negligible unlike other activated materials or fission products. But hey, I am not sure if my conclusions are right, math is not my forte and so I have to hope others will bear with me.

Mike Velasquez 01:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

The change in half-life means that you get about one fifth the amount I'd originally estimated transmuted per year. This is a significant change, but the other fudging I was doing in the calculation could cause far greater changes. The math I gave is at best used as a hand-waving argument illustrating how 1) most of the iron would take more than two absorptions to activate, 2) two neutron absorptions doesn't happen for the vast majority of atoms (about one in ten million absorbs two with the fudged numbers I gave), and 3) the amount that's transmuted decays very slowly. Any actual numbers added to these handwaved points aren't terribly important, but only illustrate that the calculations can be performed and give you something in roughly the right ballpark. The values I used were _not_ trustworthy for most steps. --Christopher Thomas 09:37, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I see your point now. As you mention, actual numbers would not be terribly important when the points could be made with the calculations you made. the fact that most iron would take more than two absorptions of neutrons, the absorptions of two neutrons don't happen often and that the amount transmuted decays slowly seem to point out to a conclusion: that the Cobalt 60 produced each yeat would be a negligible danger and not noticeable due to its extremely small production, and also that any amount transmuted eventually will not be noticeable due to its long half-life, in comparison to other fission products and activated materials. That's why iron couldn't be any significant source of Cobalt 60. I hope I understood your conclusion. If not, feel free to point out the mistake in my conclusion.

Mike Velasquez 15:18, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stuff which needs to get added

There needs to be a basic introduction to linear implosion here in the design article; I have covered the basics in the W48 and W79 pages, but it should really be here.

There should be a better introduction or overview of levitated pit and hollow core pit designs; they're currently mentioned in several places in passing.

Georgewilliamherbert 02:06, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Duration?

How long can an atomic bomb lay in abeyance before it becomes rusty and out of order? 50 years? 100 years? A thousand years? In theory, would the US be able to defend itself against an alien attack of green little men in the year 2525 with today's weapons? XavierTheGreat 20:24, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

'Depends on what type of bomb we're discussing. For a plain-old atomic (single-stage fission) bomb, the main fuel (uranium or plutonium) is sufficiently stable to let the bomb detonate even a long time later. But if the "initiator" is passive (polonium and gold foil, IIRC), the polonium has a very short half life and won't work after something like < 1 year. And if the initiator is electronic, the batteries will need changing. (Certain extremely-primitive gun-type fission bombs will probably detonate without an initiator; they would probably remain viable for a long, long time [in the scale of human politics].) Also, the high-explosives may degrade, either becoming more sensitive to an accidental detonation (which would probably be a fizzle, atomic-bomb-wise) or lead to screwed-up timing (which would cause an implosion-style bomb to fizzle).
For a boosted fission bomb or a thermonuclear (fusion) bomb, you've also got the constraint that the tritium has a pretty short half life and would probably need replacement in <10 years.
Atlant 00:32, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
Nobody uses polonium anymore; electrical neutron generators have been standard since slightly after the invention of the nuclear bomb, usually short particle acellerators firing deuterium and/or tritium into a D or T target (there are commercial neutron generators for industrial use which are longer lifetime/lower output, but the same concept).
Plutonium metal's behavior changes over long periods of time. The lifetime of existing US nuclear warheads past 40 or 45 years is in question due to Plutonium aging effects.
The lifetime and stability of the explosives used is also uknown for hundreds-of-years duration. Some older explosives used had safe shelf lives of less than five years; modern ones have lasted for 35 years or more. We still have W62 warheads from 1970-1976 production in service today, and other models of nuclear weapon were in service for more than 30 years as well... the B61 design has been in production for 40 years, but the earliest models produced have all been retired.
It's hard to predict how long one could push designs; 50 years should be practical. Using Uranium instead of Plutonium should extend the fissile material lifetime. There are probably explosives which can be stable for 50+ years, and plastic bonded TATB seems likely to fit into that category based on what I know. Nobody's actually stored it for 50+ years to see what happens, though, so we don't know for sure (it's not that old a material....).
Gun type bombs could conceivably last for a very very long time.
For all weapons, the lifetime of the electronics would be a major limit.
Is this book project research, or just an idle question? Georgewilliamherbert 06:19, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
They started making new plutonium pits a few years back (2003, I believe, about 15 years after Rocky Flats got tube steaked). This may idicate that the friendly folks at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore believe that replacement parts are needed. (You could also argue that new designs are in the works, or that they are making them just to keep a skilled workforce in case of future need). Give Peace A Chance 06:38, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
As has been noted, there are a lot of variables in this. Our stockpile stewardship article is pretty bare at the moment, but if you Google "stockpile stewardship" you'll find a lot of official and unofficial reports about the research done on the reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile as time goes on, which gets at your question. It is also a politically controversial issue as well, which you should watch out for: some people use the uncertainty as a way to argue for more testing of weapons components and even of the weapons themselves. --Fastfission 15:29, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Gun type atomic bombs that have percussian type impact fuzes could remain viable for centuries. A percussian fuze is for example a copper nose cap filled with an explosive such as mercury fulminite . When the gun type atomic weapon hits a target the impact will explode the percussian fuze, which will explode the cordite driving the Heu pieces together to form a common metal ball of supercritical mass, and producing an atomic explosion in a pure fission type weapon design. Tmayes1999 11:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Inter-Disciplinary Applications of (Emerging) Technologies and Classification of Weapons Designs by Innovative Usage of Such Technologies

It would be good to have some way of trying to find out how emerging technological areas (such as nanotechnology) might have something of an effect on the nature of advanced nuclear designs. Further areas of progress in regards to theoretical limitations of the design of nuclear weapons - together with possible suggestions for various methods for improving nuclear design might also be interesting. Specifically, I imagine that *theoretical limitations* on current nuclear designs would be an interesting topic for the wiki.

One idea that crossed my mind would certainly be how nanotechnologically derived materials could alter the nature of the lensing apparatus associated with the guidance of shock waves for the initiation of the fission process.

It is also obvious that an aesthetic classification system that analyses how some of the weapons designs depend on other technologies (for example, guidance systems) would be interesting.

While potentially interesting, this looks like it is wading directly into the area of Wikipedia:No original research. --Fastfission 16:07, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Data and Computational Requirements for Effective Nuclear Weapon Design Analysis and Simulation

Here is a quote from the article : "Weapons systems that require relatively small thermonuclear weapons, such as MIRVed missiles, are thought to be achievable only with large amounts of test result data."

Perhaps some elucidation would be useful in these regards? What aspect of weapons design requires access to what types of data? Specifically what critical data is measured and obtained from direct nuclear tests and how does this reveal efficacy of nuclear design? Could I determine the type of nuclear weapon used/deployed during a nuclear war with satellite information? Surely advances in computational simulation methods and techniques replace at least a significant amount of what may have been historically required in terms of 'on the field experimental validation' of nuclear weapons design?

Well I'm not sure a lot of those details on what exactly the test data tells you are public (in fact I am sure much of it is not). My rough guess is that in the end it all comes down to intricacies regard the behavior of the materials with very small tolerances for error, but that is an almost meaninglessly general statement. As for detection of type used via satellite information, you could probably tell a lot about the weapon from various types of post-blast information, and I imagine the sort of information you can get from Vela satellites probably would help with that. As for the computer simulations, generally speaking, yes, they are trying to rely on them, but my understanding of it is that it is hard to have confidence in the simulations without the test data to go along with it. With a large set of test data, though, you can apparently make fairly useful and reliable computer simulations, which is why the U.S. was so afraid of Chinese spies stealing old test data (because they could use the simulations to leapfrog without having testing themselves). --Fastfission 16:20, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Common causes for nuclear weapons testing failures and Design Philosophy

Here it might be a nice idea to analyse (briefly) some of the common causes of the *failures* of any particular nuclear tests (this includes analysis of those tests that were touted as being successes). This may link into the above section about data and how it feeds back into the nuclear design process and philosophy. What extra equipment might I choose to integrate with any particular nuclear design system (and how might I conveniently integrate such equipment) to ensure that I can maximise the amount of information that I would gain from the deployment of a given nuclear weapon (whether or not such a deployment would succeed or fail).

This links into sensors for nuclear weapons and how those sensors might place constraints on the original intention of the nuclear weapons design (namely destruction) - clearly, when designing a nuclear weapon (though having a large amount of informational and theoretical background in regards to nuclear weapons design, at least from textbooks), it would possibly be a prudent investment of time and effort to ensure that some design alterations are made in such a way as to maximise 'practical' data obtained from a single deployment - that way any further tests would stand a greater chance of success, especially if the given test deployment is your first one. This includes both internal and external sensor technology methods for test data retrieval. Perhaps emphasis should be given to the issue that it is not so much the data that is obtained from the nuclear weapons testing that is of relevance (so it is!) but what you do with that data (specifically, how it can be incorporated into softwares to aid in design and error detection).

Basically want a better approximation to the perfect nuclear weapons system design and systems design approach. Philosophically speaking - how would I design the perfect nuclear weapon *and* nuclear weapons infrastructure? Are there any error detection methods and techniques that are required in nuclear weapons design that are not commonly used in regards to the design of other more mundane technologies?

Failures: I'm not sure there is a uniform reason for failures other than "they made certain theoretical assumptions that proved to be wrong." But a description of some of the notable failures and errors might be useful, since it does highlight the somewhat absurd nature of nuclear design (that even after dumping millions of dollars into something as important as a nuclear weapon, they can still be quite wrong about the science and not realize it until they accidentally irradiate a thousand people). The biggest failures that I know of are the first three tests for Lawrence Livermore (all fizziles) and the under-estimations of the yields of the Operation Castle shots (175% of expectation in one shot, 150% off in another). There are other issues like bombs being dropped in the wrong place (i.e. in the Crossroads Able shot) but those aren't design-related problems.
Sensors: I don't quite think I understand what you are getting at. I think you are mixing the question of warhead design and test design up a bit. The test design (i.e. design of the nuclear test shots themselves) was no doubt often arranged to give lots of different types of practical knowledge from any given shot, but I don't think that the warhead design was likely affected by this in any way.
Design and systems: I imagine there are many things which are technically specific to nuclear weapons designs, primarily because nuclear weapons designs deal with lots of things that "mundane" technologies do not (a simple example of that is the extreme levels of heat and pressure they create). As for the "perfect" weapon/infrastructure, it depends what you define "perfect" as. There is no "perfect" nuclear weapon design -- it depends what characteristics you want in a weapon (i.e. must it be very high yield or not? must it fit onto a missile or not? must it use only plutonium or not? must it be able to survive for decades without maintenance or not?), which history has shown to be very context-sensitive (hence many in the U.S. think that what was "perfect" for the Cold War is no longer "perfect" in the post-Cold War). --Fastfission 16:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
And... Wikipedia is not a nuclear proliferation how-to guide.
It's one thing to examine the past in detail. Cookbooks for how to design nukes and nuclear development or materials production programs are something else. These things are examined by unclassified experts in the field all the time, but people don't publish the details openly. Georgewilliamherbert 20:55, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
I very much doubt that there's anything we could publish here that would be of use to any would-be proliferator. --Robert Merkel 00:09, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
This is an actual problem with, for example, the Nuclear Weapons FAQ that Carey Sublette maintains. There is significant openly known information which has been left out of the FAQ to date, as detailed analytical treatments of it would be a proliferation risk. Even the level of detail in the FAQ and related materials is sufficient for a suitably bright and educated person with physics and engineering background to build compact reliable weapons, and have a fair chance at designing a functional moderately compact thermonuclear weapon on the first try. Georgewilliamherbert 00:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Anything that would be seriously of use to them would fail WP:V and WP:NOR. Anything which meets WP:V and WP:NOR is already in the public domain somewhere and not our proliferation problem. I know there is at least one person who edits on here who probably knows some hard facts which would be useful for a proliferator of some sort, but he is smart enough not to post it, since the personal penalties would be high. --Fastfission 01:54, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article misleading emphasis

Lithium does not actually take part in the thermonuclear reactions. Lithium is used in the form of lithium deuteride (a solid) to compactly store deuterium within the second stage of the H-bomb. It is the deuterium that takes part in the thermonuclear reaction not the lithium. I'm surprised this hasnt been picked up before. Troll at work? LochVoil 18:05, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Disclaimer: I'm no expert.
But are you sure the lithium itself plays no part? I note that in ITER, it's the torus's lithium liner (blanket) that is transmuted by the neutron bombardment to create the tritium that will fuel the on-going reaction.
Atlant 18:20, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

From http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Library/Fusion.html

The most important fusion reactions for thermonuclear weapons are given below:

  1. D + T -> He-4 + n + 17.588 MeV
  2. D + D -> He-3 + n + 3.268 MeV
  3. D + D -> T + p + 4.03 MeV
  4. He-3 + D -> He-4 + p + 18.34 MeV
  5. Li-6 + n -> T + He-4 + 4.78 MeV
  6. Li-7 + n -> T + He-4 + n - 2.47 MeV

[D and T stand for deuteron or deuterium (H-2), and triton or tritium (H-3) respectively.]

Reactions 5 and 6 are not thermonuclear reactions, strictly speaking. They are neutronic reactions, like fission, and do not require heat or pressure, just neutrons in the correct energy range. This distinction is usually ignored in the literature about nuclear weapons however. The Li-6 + n reaction requires neutrons with energies is the low MeV range or below. The Li-7 + n reaction is only significant when the energies are above 4 MeV.

Note the magnitude of the various MeV releases, the D+T and D+D are the primary energy release mechanisms. As I understand it equation 4 makes a smaller contribution although its MeV release is large, because all the reactions are exponentially sensitive to the plasma temperature i.e. complex reaction kinetics.

From Lithium:

6Li content may be as low as 3.75% in natural samples. 7Li would therefore have a content of up to 96.25%.

Note that the Li-7 reaction is endothermic. AFAIK "enriched" Li with a higher proportion of Li-6 is not used in HBombs?

All in all, the original wording implies to a layman that gaseous D combined with metallic Li "spontaneously" results in a thermonuclear reaction which is obviously not the case. Perhaps the wording could be: "... deuterium and tritium (via lithium transmutation) ..."

If you sum over the reaction set, Li + D -> ... is strictly correct, but stating it that way really seems to obscure whats really driving the energy release. LochVoil 21:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)


The edit you made was surely the correct one; I'm not sure how it slipped beyond for so long though honestly I rarely read over the intro to articles carefully after awhile. The only other place lithium appears in the article seems to be correct (it does not fuse itself, but is a convenient way to store deterium and to create tritium). Apparently the sentence used to say "hydrogen and helium" which was more correct than lithium though itself somewhat misleading; I think someone must have changed it to "deterium" and "lithium" because they were confused about the role in the latter. --Fastfission 17:31, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
The Li-7 doesn't directly do anything other than provide fuel after absording a neutron. It then decomposes to form an alpha particle, another neutron, and a tritium nucleus boosting the other reactions. Not taking that extra fuel into consideration caused the underestimation of the Castle Bravo shot. --LiamE 23:27, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] salted bomb

A salted bomb is a nuclear weapon constructed like fission-fusion-fission weapons, but instead of a fissionable jacket around the secondary stage fusion fuel, a blanket of a specially chosen isotope of a non-fissionable element is used, (cobalt-59 in the case of the cobalt bomb). This blanket captures the escaping neutrons from the secondary to breed a radioactive isotope that maximizes the radiation hazard from the weapon rather than generating additional explosive force from fast fission of U-238. The primary purpose of this weapon is to create extreme radioactive fallout to deny a region to an advancing army, a sort of wind-deployed mine-field.

Salting agents

Variable fallout effects can be obtained by using different salting isotopes. Gold has been proposed for short-term fallout (days), tantalum and zinc for fallout of intermediate duration (months), and cobalt for long term contamination (years). Arsenic and Sodium could also be used for very short-term fallouts. To be useful for salting, the blanket element must be abundant in the natural isotope, so that expensive purification is not needed. Also, the neutron-bred radioactive product must be a strong emitter of high energy penetrating gamma rays, either directly or through indirect decay pathways.


I found this description with www.ask.com It is from wikipedia, but where is it now? Wandalstouring 21:29, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

See this section near the end of the article: Nuclear weapon design#Advanced thermonuclear weapons designs
I hope that helps answer your question. Georgewilliamherbert 23:54, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] SI Units

I can suggest changing to SI units in the Miniaturization part, or maybe adding them in brackets to comply with international standards. Lack of meters and kilograms and presence of inches and pounds confuses European readers.

Fixed. Next time, feel free to fix it yourself. I have gone for using SI units as the primaries, as this is a physics/engineering article of global interest. --Robert Merkel 06:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
George, could you please point out precisely what section of the policy I violated by changing to using SI units as the primary units? I understand your loss of concern with precision in the estimates, but look at the context: it's not providing precise engineering details, it's giving handwavy figures (which are of dubious accuracy anyway) making the point that nuclear weapons got a lot smaller in the 1950s. --Robert Merkel 14:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Purified Hydrogen Bomb, is that real?

In the game Metal Gear Solid 2, I heard something about a purified Hydrogen bomb. Does this kind of nuclear device really exists, or it´s just an invention?

  • Most likely just a weird game-specific issue. Hydrogen bombs usually use Lithium-6 Deuteride, sometimes mixed with 'regular' Lithium-7, wrapped in natural uranium as a tamper with a hollow plutonium 'spark plug' in the center of a cylindrical assembly with an aspect ratio greater than 1.  E. Sn0 =31337= Talk to me :D 02:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
You could ideally interpret it as meaning that the fusion fuel was especially refined but it is likely just nonsense. It is not a common term, anyway. --Fastfission 03:02, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
It's probably referring to a pure fusion weapon, which appears to be impossible with present technology despite considerable research in the area. --Robert Merkel 12:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] this is one of the best articles on wiki

which is fairly disturbing!


Indeed so. The incredible lack of political sensitivity and saavy on display here boggles the mind. 70.106.60.44

This article is only a very small part of what's publically known about how nuclear weapons are built, and contains no useful information for someone wanting to design one. The references for this page, on the other hand... But don't blame Wikipedia for those. They're all out there already. Georgewilliamherbert 06:21, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Foam vs. Ablation

Under "Staged thermonuclear weapons" there is a graphic illustrating the "foam theory" of compression. Beneath this graphic, the text points out that this is a disputed theory. I think it is worth informing the reader that the foam theory is more than disputed; it has been essentially discredited in favor of ablation pressure.

Yes, you are right. Someone should correct this article. If I can find enought time I will do it my self, but anyone with sufficient interest should feel free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by UltimateDestroyerOfWorlds (talk • contribs) 14:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tamper

Here is a quote from the article.

While the effect of a tamper is to increase the efficiency both by reflecting neutrons and by delaying the expansion of the core, the effect on the efficiency is not as great as the effect on the critical mass. The reason for this is that the process of reflection is relatively time consuming and may not occur extensively before the chain reaction is terminated.

Is this correct? It is saying that the tamper affects the critical mass more than the efficiency. From the second sentence, I would think that the reverse would be true. Also, by affecting the critical mass, does that mean it causes a reduction in the critical mass? I think that it should be stated explicitly. -- Kjkolb 17:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

The reduction in critical mass is a consequence of the reflected neutrons and of compression so this section is wrong in implying that the reduction in critical mass is a separate thing. The time issue is relevant in that it means you can't reduce the critical mass with reflectors too much before the chain reaction slows down enough for efficiency to suffer. Man with two legs 10:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
What is probably necessary here is to better define "efficiency". --Fastfission 14:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
That is already covered in that section (Tamper reflector): efficiency, i.e. the fraction of the fissile material that actually fissions. Man with two legs 15:10, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hydrogen Bomb

Hydrogen bomb redirects here. Shouldn't it have its own article? Seems like a fairly significant technology. Nareek 14:10, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

There is an article specifically covering the design of "hydrogen bombs" - Teller-Ulam design; but the distinction between "atomic" and "hydrogen" bombs is far less clear cut than is often portrayed, and until you understand the material in this article largely meaningless. Contemporary "fission" bombs use fusion boosting to increase their yield, and "fusion" bombs can get much of their destructive power from causing fission in their uranium casing. --Robert Merkel 06:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I've moved the redirect to Teller-Ulam design, since the broad broad overview and history given there seems like a better match for what most people are looking for in an H-bomb article than the design-oriented material here. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TotoBaggins (talk • contribs) 05:42, 14 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Inherent radioactivity of fissile materials

I continually hear that, for instance, the radioactivity of a plutonium core in a nuclear device is so negligible such that it can be handled without special, protective equipment. Perhaps I missed it in the article, but is this true?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.116.151.58 (talk • contribs).

From plutonium:

The toxicity of plutonium is in dispute; nuclear industry advocates point to the low chemical toxicity of plutonium and ability of a worker to hold a kilogram brick of the material without protection; if inhaled or digested, however, plutonium's effects due to radioactivity overwhelm the effects of plutonium's chemical interactions with the body, and the LD50 dose drops to the order of 5ug/kg.

For a 150lb (68kg) person, the LD50 (5 mcg/kg) would be approx 0.341 mg, a very tiny amount. --Bk0 (Talk) 20:31, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
More importantly, Plutonium (Pu-239) decays into alpha radiation, which is stopped harmlessly in the upper layer of skin or in a few inches of air. Betas and gammas and neutrons are much more dangerous, but Pu-239 decay is almost entirely alpha.
If you inhale small particles, you have a problem, though. Lacking skin to protect it, the inside of your lungs will be directly exposed to the alphas, and a particle which is big enough to generate many alphas and small enough to actually get breathed in and stay down in your lungs can easily cause lung cancer. Georgewilliamherbert 21:27, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nuclear Pumped Lasers

Technically, are these nuclear weapons or not? Would it be a good idea to link nuclear pumped lasers to some visible place at the bottom of the current article? Nukemason4 23:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Nuclear pumped laser seems to imply that it is powered by a reactor — I'd say that falls out of the definition of a nuclear weapon. At first I thought you were referring to the nuclear-pumped X-ray lasers of early SDI plans, which certainly were related in a direct way to nuclear weapons (as they used nuclear weapons in them), but reactor-driven lasers seem less related to me. --Fastfission 03:06, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More Mathematics

Could some parts of this article use at least a few mathematical methods hints for those types of considerations (say, within statistical physics) that it is necessary to understand in order to more comprehensively understand nuclear weapons designs? I can imagine that a lot of people out there must dislike the mathematical aspects of calculations that must be considered when detailing nuclear weapons design - but there must be someone out there with a few pages of calculation that would be worth adding to the article? Nukemason4 23:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see the Nuclear Weapons FAQ at [http:/nuclearweaponarchive.org http://nuclearweaponarchive.org]. Wikipedia should not pull all of that detailed info into the articles here. Georgewilliamherbert 18:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that mathematics is inappropriate for Wikipedia articles? Check out Gauge theory and Dirac equation. Worse, check out some math articles like Lie algebra and related subarticles listed. Math is sometimes inappropriate for introductory articles. It may be fully appropriate for subarticles, as needed. SBHarris 03:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please fix!

The Nuclear weapon design article currently contains this quote under the Efficiency section: "The efficiency of a fission weapon is the fraction of the fissile material that actually fissions. The maximum is approximately 25%. For Fat Man it was 14%, for Little Boy only 1.4%. Fusion boosting can increase the fission efficiency to 40%." As stated, the first and last of these statements are contradictory. —Pqrstuv 01:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll change it to The maximum for an unboosted weapon is approximately 25% but I do not claim to be an expert. Man with two legs 09:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I won't. Georgewilliamherbert has already inserted "for a pure fission weapon". Man with two legs 10:00, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ratio versus Factor

A recent edit by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/203.201.132.189 has caused me to question the use of a 'ratio' versus a 'factor', the factor (I believe), is a multiplier function (in this piece of text), while the edited version shows a ratio function using the colon. (:) I don't know which one is better,

Original version,

conventional explosives surrounding the material to rapidly compress the mass to a supercritical state. This compression reduces the volume by a factor of 2 to 3.

New version,

conventional explosives surrounding the material to rapidly compress the mass to a supercritical state. This compression reduces the volume by a factor of 2:3.

Does anyone care to enlighten me? As per usual, i'd be glad to adjust the text to whatever the consensus is.--Read-write-services 23:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The second one can only be right if the original author was rather eccentric. I've reverted on the basis of probability. Man with two legs
As what passes for an expert in the field (as far as one can be without working for a government), I can confirm that compression is a factor of 2 to 3 (sometimes more). I.e., density(imploded)/density(stp) is often/usually between 2.0 and 3.0. Georgewilliamherbert 22:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


Thank you George, I would like some clarification on just what units we should settle on here in the article. there is substantial metric usage although there is some US measures which units should we use?. Perhaps we could give both units but conversions are required in some instances. The article starts to become a little cumbersome, otherwise. --Read-write-services 02:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Hah. Unfortunately, most of the US weapons were designed in inches, and the declassified specifications are inches and pounds...
WP units standards say to use the source dimensions, and a parenthesized conversion. When describing the US ones, we're stuck with inches as the base unit. Georgewilliamherbert 02:58, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


okay, all edits by me will include the parenthesized vesion AFTER the originalk units used in munufacture--Read-write-services 03:01, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Miniaturization

'Moved to talk page - that's what the talk pages are for... Georgewilliamherbert 00:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)'


The statement that the W54 was tested up to 6 kilotons seems at odds with the statement above that it ranged from .01 to .25 kilotons. Might we get some clarification? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.185.96.158 (talk • contribs)

To clarify, during development it was determined that yield could be up to 6KT, but was implemented in the W54 with yields ranging from 0.01 to 0.25K —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.200.200 (talk • contribs)
That's correct, I will link to the 6kt test ( Hardtack II Socorro ). Georgewilliamherbert 00:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article split?

This article is long enough that it would seem natural to split off "fusion bomb" and "fission bomb" into subarticles, and leave a brief summary of each here. -- Beland 03:51, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ion Source

The part under neutron initiator refers to the ion source, what exactly do they use to produe ions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.49.5.234 (talk • contribs)

It's a very small particle accellerator, basically. Either heating or an electric arc is used to strip an electron or electrons off some deuterium atoms, which are then electrostatically accellerated down the tube to a target with tritium in it... See Neutron generator Georgewilliamherbert 20:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from physics package

Physics package is hardly more than a dictionary definition. The text and photo would probably serve better in a section here about the physical packaging of nuclear warheads. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2007-08-10 21:39 Z

I tend to agree. We should have a link from physics package in here, though. Perhaps a section here on the physics package and packaging around the PP. Let's hold off until more of the informal nuclear project editors have a chance to comment, though. Georgewilliamherbert 01:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree as well! 70.181.149.105 23:05, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

There was no merge proposal tag on this article, only on physics package. I added one since that will probably draw more attention than the other one. Joriki (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the entire "Nuclear weapon design" article is an article about the physics package. I don't think the physics package article has much to add, except that the picture is nice (too bad the color is not better). It is not referenced, and it has a few random bits of information which are all covered in the many linked nuclear weapon articles. Effectively, the "Physics package' article has already been merged, especially with the re-write of the "Nuclear weapon design" article. Perhaps it should just be deleted. Alternatively, the first sentence of the larger article could read, "Nuclear weapon design describes, in historical context, the three alternative mechanisms for the physics package of a nuclear weapon. HowardMorland (talk) 14:24, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
One option after merging is that it could be a redirect to a specific section of this article which is most relevant to the term. That was used heavily with the previous version of this article. --JWB (talk) 20:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


Here's my recommendation (changed on Feb 18, 2008). Make the first paragraph of Nuclear weapon design read:

Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package[1] of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three basic design types; all three derive their explosive energy primarily from nuclear fission, not fusion.

  1. ^ The physics package is the nuclear explosive module inside the bomb casing, missile warhead, or artillery shell, etc., which delivers the weapon to its target. While photographs of weapon casings are common, photographs of the physics package are quite rare, even for the oldest and crudest nuclear weapons. For a photograph of a modern physics package see W80.

This picks up some of the opening language of the article before the rewrite. It also covers everything of value in the physics package article, making it reasonable to delete the physics package article and redirect physics package to nuclear weapon design. (I don't know how to do a delete and redirect.)

The design article is about the physics package and nothing else, really. Every nuclear weapon has a physics package. There is no way the Physics package article can blossom into a real article without simply duplicating the design article. Even as a stub, it merely repeats things in other articles, which is why someone suggested the merge.

I will wait 24 hours for comments and make the change in the design article if no one objects here. HowardMorland (talk) 02:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I made the change, including the delete and redirect. HowardMorland (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Complete Top-to-Bottom Re-write

I have completely re-written this article, using some of the same text and illustrations, and posted the re-write on my Sandbox page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:HowardMorland/Sandbox

The old article, as now posted, has no overall framework. The level of detail is uneven; some less important things get more attention than more important things. The re-write attempts to tie everything into a historical narrative and to even out the level of detail.

The re-write has no references, yet. I plan to have a footnote in nearly every paragraph eventually.

Four experts in the field have reviewed the re-write and made helpful suggestions. This is the first public notice, for wider discussion. Later in the week, I plan to make the substitution.

I haven't figured out what to do about incorporating "Physics Package" into the article. It seems to me it's just another term for warhead.

HowardMorland (talk) 14:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

The substitution is made. The new text has benefitted from input by the four experts. Some footnotes are in place, many more to come. I plan to add a brief section about the role of nuclear weapon testing in the design process. HowardMorland (talk) 23:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Had a quick read and it looks good. Can I suggest a couple of possible improvements. I didnt see anything much on criticality/prompt criticality which might be useful - may have missed that though as I only gave it a quick read. To my mind the U235/U238 differences could benefit from further explanation. I'm pretty sure that saying uranium tamper does not undergo fission is incorrect. While it doesnt initially, quite a fair bit of it does in the latter stages of a detonation. For instance with the Tsar Bomba, the design difference between a uranium and non fissionable tamper was c.50mt! Very good stuff there though. --LiamE (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Indeed so, and these differences undoubtedly play a role in real life. You have to use some kind of tamper and metal re-entry shell for your thermonuke warheads, and it may as well be U-238, which lets you do three jobs at once with the same material (tamper, entry shield, yield-increaser). I note that the Tsar Bomba wouldn't come close to the best yeild/wt ratio of 7 kt/kg, until you figured on the tamper fission. Without that, yield/wt wasn't great. And probably would also be crappy in the present U.S. yield/wt champ without it, also. SBHarris 05:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I revisited this page recently and most impressed with the re-write. Well written, well structured, well illustrated, and with some useful new information. Congratulations! Chrisj1948 (talk) 11:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Some existing articles have more detail than Nuclear weapon design, like Teller-Ulam design Tritium Boosted fission weapon Nuclear fusion Plutonium Plutonium-239, and some of that material would be useful in this article. Also, here are some questions and comments after reading the draft:

"The fission of one plutonium atom releases ten times more total energy than the fusion of one tritium atom, and it generates fifty times more blast and fire." I think you are referring to 80% of D-T fusion energy going to the neutron, which does not thermalize as quickly as a charged particle. But it should still lose most of its kinetic energy via scattering in a time scale that is short by human standards.

Categorizing as pure fission, boosted, or staged thermonuclear: where does this put the "layer cake" designs?

Air lens: I don't see it in the Swedish diagram.

"The mass of the pit can be reduced by half, without reducing yield." (by boosting) This may be true if the mass is large enough that criticality is not a problem, but what if the mass is already near the lower limit for criticality? How much does boosting change the mass necessary for criticality? This would be good info to include if available. And is it really true that the smallest boosted critical mass is half the smallest unboosted critical mass?

"Since the mass of the metal being imploded (tamper plus pit) is reduced, a smaller charge of high explosive is needed, reducing diameter even further." Is it also true that the required peak density at the peak of implosion is reduced, since even a "fizzle"-scale initial fission yield is enough to initiate fusion of boost gas? If so, this is also a factor reducing the chemical explosive needed.

Cannister: Only one n.

"most of the energy of several kilotons of TNT is absorbed by a plasma (superheated gas) generated from plastic foam in the radiation channel": Doesn't the plasma quickly become transparent to X-rays after full ionization?

"This greater pressure enables the secondary to be significantly more powerful than the primary, without being much larger." Also, the secondary is not limited by the constraint of not being able to have too much (pure) fissile material close together without going critical even before implosion. This is what lets a secondary be potentially more powerful than the biggest pure fission bomb.

"Equally important, the active ingredients in the Flute probably cost no more than those in the Swan." How much did Li-6 cost at the time?

Swan device diagram: No levitated pit?

"However, in warheads yielding more than one megaton, the diameter of a spherical secondary would be too large for most applications. A cylindrical secondary is necessary in such cases." Isn't this true only for bomb bays of aircraft available in the early days? It might not be applicable to all later aircraft either because of increased size or because large bombs are now sometimes carried externally. Is any missile warhead known to have a cylindrical secondary, and if so was it a requirement or just a carryover from a bomb design?

"Radiation implosion will hold everything together long enough to permit the complete conversion of lithium-6 into tritium, while the bomb explodes." Fission of the tamper induced by fusion neutrons may also help maintain temperature and compression and supply neutrons for lithium-6 conversion. Also, is there any actual data on what proportion of Li-6 is split?

"No material is better suited for both of these jobs than ordinary, cheap uranium-238, which happens, also, to undergo fission when struck by the neutrons produced by D-T fusion." Don't many modern designs instead use somewhat enriched uranium for the secondary tamper as a relatively cheap boost, only keeping the U-235 content low enough to not risk criticality?

"the spark plug then continues to fission in the neutron-rich environment until it is fully consumed, adding significantly to the yield": The spark plug can't be larger than an uncompressed critical mass; how big can its contribution be?

"But the resulting invention turned out to be the cheapest and most compact way to build small nuclear bombs as well as large ones": Is this true even when maximum desired yield is within the range of a boosted fission weapon? Even if the US etc. have no non-staged weapons in the current arsenal (I have no idea if this is the case), it might be more accurate to say that a staged weapon is still pretty small, say, a few times the volume of a primary or boosted fission weapon, and not much more costly, and can be used at either low or high yield. E.g. "Staged thermonuclear bombs turned out to be a cheap and compact way to build nuclear weapons capable of both low and high yields."

"Even pure fission weapons include neutron generators which are high-voltage vacuum tubes containing trace amounts of tritium and deuterium." Are all current weapons boosted as well, or are there really pure fission weapons? If you include the newer nuclear nations, they may be more likely to still have pure fission weapons, but if so they may not have the D-T particle accelerator initiators either.

"It first became practical when incorporated into the secondary of a two-stage thermonuclear weapon." The Alarm Clock/Sloika design specifically, or was this simply abandoned?

"Since it takes roughly five megatons of fusion to produce the same blast and fire effect as one megaton of fission": Same comment as before, neutron kinetic energy is still released eventually. Also, besides D-T fusion, there are smaller amounts of energy released by the Li-n reaction, D-D fusion, D-He3 fusion (with He-3 produced by D-D fusion), and perhaps even direct Li-D fusion if very high temperatures are reached; all of these release more energy as charged particles, unlike D-T fusion.

"The standard high-fission thermonuclear weapon is automatically a weapon of radiological warfare, as dirty as a cobalt bomb." Quite dirty, but not sure that exact statement is true. The time profile of the fallout from each is different. If you are comparing two weapons of equal explosive yield, the cobalt bomb is surely much more radioactive about 1 to 5 years later, but probably not at much shorter or longer time scales.

W88: Is the (optional changeable yield-increasing?) secondary tamper really almost pure U-235, or a lower enrichment? Also, alternating layers of fusion and fission in the secondary is something I haven't seen yet in W88, [5] or [6]. --JWB (talk) 10:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Most of the items you mention were the subject of recent email discussions with George Herbert, Carey Sublette, and Dan Stober, and the resulting text reflects the consensus of that discussion. For example, levitation makes sense only with a massive tamper. Swan was tamped/reflected only with light-weight beryllium. Also, fusion boosting works best when all the D-T gas is pressed into a single point rather than spread around a surface, suggesting a hollow pit. A hollow pit could be levitated (as it was in a lecture prop I made in 1980 [[7]] but I don't think that was actually done. I will address several of your suggested clarifications in footnotes, which I plan to work on during the holidays. (I have a good qoute from Hans Bethe on the Alarm Clock.) HowardMorland (talk) 15:01, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm particularly interested in your answer on the 14 MeV fusion neutrons, which I've read have a half-absorption range of about 150 m in air. Thus, in 500 m (about the detonation height of a big thermonuke, or less), 90% of neutron kinetic energy has been converted to blast and heat in the air between bomb and city. What more do you want? SBHarris 06:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Neutron energy released into a ball of air 1 kilometer in diameter does not produce the blast and fire characteristic of a nuclear explosion. The energy needs to be converted into heat before it leaves the bomb casing. HowardMorland (talk) 18:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Hydrogen-1 has 23000 times as much scattering cross section than capture cross section for 14 MeV neutrons[8] and a neutron will lose half its kinetic energy in one collision. Other components of air probably have low capture cross sections (they are very low for thermal neutrons, don't have 14 MeV figures handy) so those neutrons are losing most kinetic energy even well before absorption.
Also, from Samuel Cohen: "the 'clean' bomb case thickness scales as the cube-root of yield. So a larger percentage of neutrons escapes from a small detonation, due to the thinner case required to reflect back X-rays during the secondary stage (fusion) ignition. For example, a 1-kiloton bomb only needs a case 1/10th the thickness of that required for 1-megaton. So although most neutrons are absorbed by the casing in a 1-megaton bomb, in a 1-kiloton bomb they would mostly escape." --JWB (talk) 08:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
While those numbers work out, I don't think anyone has ever proposed a 1-kiloton thermonuclear bomb... I'm not sure there have been any less than 40 to 50 kt ( 40-50 kt W68, 60 kt W50 Y1, 70 kt B43 ), unless you count neutron bombs. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 19:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Yup, Cohen was describing the conditions allowing a neutron bomb. But my point in bringing it up here was that in an ordinary thermonuclear weapon, if most neutrons are absorbed before even leaving the bomb casing, they are certainly giving up their kinetic energy to be part of the flash and blast, which is more evidence against Howard's statement that 80% of D-T fusion energy (the part carried initially by the neutron) is not available for "blast and fire". --JWB (talk) 22:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I think the next paragraph clarifies that question by mentioning the need to capture the neutrons before they leave the bomb casing and the strong incentive to do that capturing with U-238. HowardMorland (talk) 18:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
The next paragraph says the *only* practical way to capture the neutron kinetic energy is with a high-Z container, but this is contradicted by NWFAQ 4.4.3.4.1 "Few neutrons would escape without depositing most of their energy in the fuel mass." and 4.4.5.2 "Clearly fusion neutrons give their energy up very quickly to the fusion fuel, and relatively few escape the fuel without undergoing substantial moderation." --JWB (talk) 02:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
In order for 6Li burning to be self-sustaining, the fusion neutrons need to be captured and used for splitting lithium to tritium - either directly in the fusion fuel as Carey Sublette says in those two sections, or indirectly in the tamper and sparkplug which then return fission and spallation neutrons to the fusion fuel. And if fusion yield and fission yield are approximately equal, as in reported tests, there can be only about 1 fission for every 10 fusions, showing that the tamper cannot be absorbing most of the fusion neutrons. If the tamper is not capturing most fusion neutrons, it is not moderating them significantly either as elastic scattering only reduces energy by 1/238 and inelastic scattering has a lower cross section than either fission, spallation, or capture, for 14 MeV neutrons and either 238U or 235U according to NWFAQ 12. --JWB (talk) 23:21, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[9] claims "An alternative is to place the boosting gas between the outer shell and the levitated pit. ... There is evidence that US boosted primaries actually contain the boosting gas within the external shell rather than an inner levitated shell." --JWB (talk) 10:40, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

In our recent discussion, Carey Sublette indicated a possible change of opinion on that issue. The boosting gas may be less effective when plastered across a surface rather than imploded into a point. HowardMorland (talk) 18:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutron blast effects

Pasting in a bit of the above discussion to a new section:

I'm particularly interested in your answer on the 14 MeV fusion neutrons, which I've read have a half-absorption range of about 150 m in air. Thus, in 500 m (about the detonation height of a big thermonuke, or less), 90% of neutron kinetic energy has been converted to blast and heat in the air between bomb and city. What more do you want? SBHarris 06:55, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Neutron energy released into a ball of air 1 kilometer in diameter does not produce the blast and fire characteristic of a nuclear explosion. The energy needs to be converted into heat before it leaves the bomb casing. HowardMorland (talk) 18:52, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
  • ANSWER: Okay, I certainly understand that dumping neutron energy into a thicker bunch of air might not give you the nice thin hypershock that doing it in a few tens of meters does. On the other hand, if you do an order-of-magnitude calculation to see how much thermal/kinetic energy it takes to heat up a spherical volume air enough that its pressure rises by 5 psi, in order to get the MINIMAL radius of ";;;total damage" from this much overpressure (assuming it's uniformly spread over an entire spherical volume of air by pure heating, neutronic or otherwise) then you can compare this back-of-envelope figure with known or published 5 psi overpressure radii, to see if the neutron-heating pressure effects are comparable to known bomb effects. And I find that they are. Check the numbers:

    To simplify calculations for this, just assume that delta-P is given by (nR/V) (delta-T) as in the ideal gas law. The delta-T is in turn given by E/C, where E is the energy and C is the heat capacity, which will generally be 2.5*n*R (constant pressure heat capacity) for n moles of air which isn't heated so hot that vibrational modes are excited. Which will certainly be true of air by the time it's expanded to overpressures of only 5 psi, where temps will be only [(5+14.7)/14.7)] ( 300 K) = 400 K. So plug 2.5 nR in for C, and you get delta-T = E/(2.5nR). Replace delta-T with this in the first equation for pressure, and the nR's cancel, and you get: deltaP = E/[2.5*V]. This is dimensionally correct, as energy has units of PV. We're looking for a delta P of 5 psi, which is 35,000 N/m^2 (we need to change to metric units, now, since our energy will be in joules). So remembering that V = 4/3 * pi * r^3, plug this in for V and solve for r to give 5 psi overpressure and you get:

    r^3 = 3E/(10 pi deltaP) where deltaP is 35,000 N/m and E is the energy of a 1 MT bomb = 4e15 J.

    Plugging these in: r^3 = (1.2e16)/(10pi *35,000)

    r = 2218 m = 2.2 km.

    I've read published values anywhere from 2.7 to 7 km for the 5 psi overpressure radius of a 1 MT bomb blast, and this is not far off. And if you remember that the neutrons are not deposited uniformly in this volume of 2.2 km radius, but actually in a shell where half the neutron kinetic energy goes into just the first 150 m of air, then you see that the actual overpressure blast wave from that inner shell, even if the ENTIRE bomb energy was neutrons, would be approximately as blast-destructive as a standard bomb. I certainly see no evidence here for the factor of 5 being argued for (though perhaps in fairness it would be cuberoot(5)), in the hypothetical (pure fission) weapon with no tertiary (i.e., the neutron bomb), except for effects inside the 500 m neutron air absorption radius. But those people inside this radius don't care about some of the energy bypassing them in penetrating neutrons, anyway, since they're dead by other means. Everybody outside the neutron air absorption radius of half a km in a big weapon, will get pretty much the same blast experience. However (so far as I can see) the flash and direct IR-radiation burn effects (30% of the energy?) from the fireball will be considerably cut down in a neutron bomb, for the same yield. That gentler neutron heating should make for quite a different and diminished fireball. And maybe the device goes WA-BOOM, instead of just BOOM. But I think the buildings still go down just about as effectively. SBHarris 02:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

REPLY: I am somewhat dubious of numbers plugged into a simple equation in this field, where so many things are happening at once in such an unusual high-energy environment. I would rather rely on data from actual test explosions, which is why the industry itself conducted so many such tests. Unfortunately, we have only bits and pieces of that data in the public record. I would cite three things, all based on test data:
  • In Glasstone's Effects of Nuclear Weapons, the discussion of energy release is all about highly-charged fission-product ions converting their kinetic energy into x-rays by non-elastic collisions within the confines of the device. There is no mention of (charge-neutral) neutrons that escape the device and heat up the surrounding air, water, and ground, thereby contributing to the shock wave. One reason for not mentioning it is that designers try so hard to keep it from happening. But it may not be much of a factor when it does.
  • The neutrons produced by the neutron bomb clearly outrun the fireball and the radius of the 5-psi overpressure shock contour in order to kill by inducing radiation sickness in people who are not close enough to be killed by the blast. This suggests that the neutrons do not contribute to blast and fire.
  • On Chuck Hansen's list of nuclear weapon tests (Volume VIII of Swords of Armageddon), the Redwing Zuni test (the clean Bassoon device, yield of 3.5 megatons), is described as 85% fusion. If true, there were 2.5 megatons worth of 14 Mev neutrons. The remaining megaton came from the kinetic energy of ions, both fission products and helium ions. It would be nice to know the radius of the 5 psi overpressure contour for Zuni to see if the detonation was more characteristic of one megaton or of 3.5 megatons. That information is not available to us, but there is interesting information about crater dimensions in Hansen's list. Three shots, Ivy Mike, Castle Bravo, and Castle Koon, were surface bursts on South Pacific islands, thermonuclear devices with yields ranging from 15 megations to 110 kilotons, mostly from fission. Remarkably, each event seemed to dig a crater with a volume equal to half a million cubic feet per kiloton of yield. Redwing Zuni was also a surface burst in similar geography, but its crater volume was about 140,000 cubic feet per kiloton. If Zuni is counted as a one-megaton explosion, its ratio of crater volume to yield is the same as that for Ivy Mike. In other words, the Zuni crater volume suggests a one megaton explosion. It's very sketchy information, only four data points, and there may be another explanation, but it is consistent with the idea that a megaton of pure fusion is much less destructive than a megaton of fission.
This discussion probably belongs in the "Effects of Nuclear Detonations" article. Its relevance to nuclear weapon design is that designers clearly made a concerted effort to convert every 14 Mev neutron into a pair of fission products with 180 Mev of kinetic energy, which is my reason for bringing it up here. HowardMorland (talk) 14:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
The neutron bomb is a different case from a larger thermonuclear weapon, as the quote from Samuel Cohen made clear. In the latter case, few neutrons escape the weapon.
Most fusion neutrons do not create a fission, or the proportion of fusion yield would be very low.
Designers do not have to make a great effort to get tamper fission - the tamper is needed anyway, and using uranium is just as easy as using a nonfissionable heavy metal.
If neutron energy is deposited in the fuel and tamper, since heat from the fuel also has to pass through the tamper, only the X-rays from the tamper will be visible to the outside. --JWB (talk) 17:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
In my 1981 book The Secret That Exploded, on pp. 89-93, I report 1978 interviews with George Kistiakowsky and Herbert York. Kistiakowsky stated, flatly, that 14 Mev fusion neutrons contribute virtually nothing to blast and fire. He said a one-megaton pure-fusion bomb would have the blast and fire effects of a 200-kiloton pure fission bomb. York agreed with my suggestion that the latest thermonuclear designs are high-fission weapons. Glasstone's Effects book says that for purposes of calculating fallout, thermonuclear weapons should be assumed to be 50% fission, but I believe the fission share is rarely that low.
In Chuck Hansen's list of nuclear tests, the first 13 thermonuclear tests for which a fission yield is given, not counting fizzles and "clean" high-fusion designs, add up to 65 total megatons of which 42 megatons are from fission, or about 64% fission. The device in this list with the highest fission percentage is Bassoon Prime, the dirty version of Bassoon, detonated as the 5-megaton Redwing Tewa shot, which Hansen says was 87% fission. This is the optimal percentage, if the three nuclear reactions featured in the article are used so that no 14 Mev neutron is wasted, each one causing a fission event. As the only three-stage device in the list, Bassoon Prime had most of its thermonuclear fuel (including U-238) in a large tertiary, imploded by the more powerful x-rays from a secondary, rather than a mere primary. It is easier to keep things from escaping from a massive, highly compressed tertiary. The challenge of future design efforts was to achieve this same efficiency in less-massive two-stage devices.
The purpose of the "oralloy thermonuclear" design, such as that shown in the W88 illustration in the article, is to increase the amount of fission coming from the secondary. If the secondary pusher is fissile, each 14 Mev neutron can be responsible for a chain reaction, not just one fission. For example, if the average chain reaction in the pusher has just three generations (seven total fissions) the relatively thin pusher needs to capture only one seventh as many neutrons to accomplish the same fission yield. HowardMorland (talk) 17:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
How do you square Kistiakowsky's statement with Cohen's and Sublette's statements about absorption in the fusion fuel (in the larger than neutron bomb case), and the other information I've brought up? (e.g. that each D-T fusion requires a Li-n reaction or two D-D fusions and that both of these release much more than 20% of energy as charged particles) They are blatantly contradictory. Hopefully we can resolve the contradiction here; if it's not resolvable, both positions should be documented in the article.
No argument with the rest of your response, except to note that Redwing Tewa did not necessarily demonstrate that every 14 MeV neutron can be made to cause a fission; the high fission yield could also result from multiplication by U-235 as you describe in the next paragraph.
Google Books and Amazon list your book as no preview/search; is that your decision or the publisher's? --JWB (talk) 00:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Kistiakowsky is a primary source. He was a Manhattan Project team leader (implosion) and later an advisor to Eisenhower and Kennedy. I'm sure he was speaking in round numbers and approximations (as does this article), but his point was to emphasize the essential uselessness of neutrons unless they cause fission. He was explaining why nuclear weapons in general, other than neutron bombs, are largely fission devices.
The energy imparted to the tritium ion and the alpha particle (both charged particles) by the Li-n reaction can be thought of as a contribution to the conditions necessary for fusion, by adding to the overall heat.
As I mention in bullet #3 under Two-Stage Thermonuclear Weapons, the fissile spark plug is fully consumed, mostly from its own chain reactions. But in 1956 there wasn't enough fissile uranium to put any in the pusher, which was much more massive than the spark plug. Fissile pushers came later.
I plan to mention the exothermic nature of the Li-n reaction in a final, short section on nuclear testing. That reaction is a potential source of neutron pre-heat inside the secondary, but it makes only a minor contribution to overall yield.

The final section of my rewrite, a section on nuclear testing, is temporarily posted in my Sandbox for comment. It mentions the topics of data collection, computer simulations, and radiation transit times, in the context of aboveground and underground testing. HowardMorland (talk) 18:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

NWFAQ 4.4.3.5.1: "The neutron MFP in the Mike model is reduced to 7.8 cm/197 = 0.040 cm, and to 0.0048 cm for the W-80, thus allowing strong neutron mediated heating of the fuel in a thin layer around the spark plug." This is yet another statement showing that most neutron energy in a thermonuclear weapon is absorbed within the fuel. --JWB (talk) 08:42, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citation tags

Surely not all innovation in nuclear weapon design occurred in the US? I'd guess that the Russians came up with a nifty idea or two. In short, I don't believe this claim. Cite a source for it or lose it.

Also, terrorists would use a fission bomb? I'm sure they'd use whatever they're sold on the black market. This claim is unverifiable. Cite a source or lose it.

--122.104.69.58 (talk) 09:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Re the "US Developments" claim - we know when all the various design elements were developed in the US, and we have reference information on Russian, Chinese, English, French programs from the time periods in question. It is clearly true that the US designs were ahead of everyone else, excepting at times the UK program which had special access to US design data.
Whether other countries caught up by independent invention or by reverse-engineering US public design info or by espionage or whatever, they were largely playing catch-up all the time.
I believe that the intent with the Terrorists claim was "what they could make" not "what could they steal/buy". But I don't think it exactly said that. I'll think about that one. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 22:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Broken links

The rewrite broke links from other articles to specific sections of the old article. For example, some of the links in Reliable Replacement Warhead#Selected design. --JWB (talk) 08:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Those links now fixed (I think). HowardMorland (talk) 15:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
There were a lot of them. I keep finding more. Unfortunately the "What links here" page does not show when a link is to a subsection.
Many of the links were for specific terms like "tamper". If the are not going to have headings in the new article, perhaps they should have their own short articles. --JWB (talk) 17:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Warhead Design Safety

I don't think that discussion of the Permissive Action Link is merrited here, for two reasons.

Firstly Warhead design safety is about engineering of the actual physics package to reduce the chance of a nuclear detonation occuring from simple mechanical or electrical malfunction. This is not the purpose of a PAL, which is to prevent unauthorised use.

Secondly the speculation that PALs are not deployed on Strategic Weapons is doubtful. It was recently announced that the UK did not use PALs on it's Strategic Deterrant, attracting criticisms from both the United States and the Russian Federation. This would imply that both those powers have attached PAL's to their strategic nuclear assets.

Finally the article mixes acknowledged speculation, with implication that the hypothesysed system is in use. I have therefore removed this section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scruffy brit (talk • contribs) 18:11, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hydrogen Bomb ARE HERE

A basic Swan bomb was given that finally exemplifes true weapons. Thanks. Except.

What was critical was the level of tritium necessary! And it was of course zero. Bare naked hydrogen will fuse nicely. Even a middle core of plain lucite will fuse.

1e22 neutrons/cm^3 as a flux density will initiate fusion.

1e16 neutrons/cm^3 will initiate alpha or the super-super critical state that truely causes a massive release in natural uranium!

Alpha was discovered by the guys sticking radiation detectors against the bomb while it explodes. Alpha is the nonlinear excursion of another reaction, NOT fission. Alpha decided the design of direct alpha initiated hydrogen bombs. Discovery of the inner workings of the bomb requires access to detailed detector data and the exact reation is little known of.

Alpha is a delay time until anomalous nonlinear energy release.

There is ability to use a common deuterium_tritium accelerator target trigger for the pit to then cause hydrogen to blast. A pit amplifys the neutron flux density to the 1 e 22 level allowing a perfect triple alpha reaction.

True design data is hard to get. This is true design advice.

Alpha neutron levels for the compressed state are given.

The key to understand is that ANY EnRICHMENT can be made to blast the hydrogen layers.

All that is required was compressed uranium and a certain neutron density!

Have a nice Christmas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.140.32 (talk) 21:50, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, where's your cites? SBHarris 22:00, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Dilute! Dilute! All-One-God-Faith! --JWB (talk) 22:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Dr. Bronner, is that you? SBHarris 22:56, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Explosive testing & Interstage

I have just posted my final contribution to this rewrite. It adds information about weapon design in the context of data collected from nuclear weapon tests. I believe the article is now reasonably complete, at about the same length it was before the rewrite. HowardMorland (talk) 15:08, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

On second thought, there seems to be enough information for a short new section on the interstage, which I have posted. HowardMorland (talk) 20:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] too much detail?

Who monitors this page to make sure that too much detail is not given about how to make a weapon like this? Sign your username: Newtowiki2 (talk) 16:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see The Nuclear Weapon Archive website and in particular Engineering and Design of Nuclear Weapons in the Nuclear Weapons FAQ there.
Wikipedia has next to none of the detailed physics, engineering, design equations, analysis. Other sites with that info have been reviewed by government sources and held to not be a particular proliferation risk. You have nothing to worry about here.
Several of the contributors here, and there, are in contact with prominent nonproliferation experts and jounrnalists who focus on the topic area, and discuss these issues intermittently. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:44, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
The real trick of making a nuclear device that would work is all concealed inside classified documents. For obvious reasons, Wikipedia cannot source from classified documents, as they are not publicly accessible sources. This is similar to the argument that I brought up on Talk:Airborne Real-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance. scetoaux (talk) (My contributions.) 23:19, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually, we have off the record confirmation that the analysis community (NW FAQ above and associated persons) have the design information and physics right. Stating that there's something hiding in the classified document wings is silly - we know the actual detailed designs are still classified, but going from the theory and a working knowledge of the design techniques and technologies and methods used to an actual design is a relatively short step. Not everything that's known about them is in Wikipedia (or even on the FAQ, due to proliferation concerns). Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I guess you're right, but there are specific details that are very important that are classified to prevent proliferation. We can't place all our money in ensuring that a country doesn't get enriched uranium or plutonium. scetoaux (talk) (My contributions.) 03:28, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
Under US Restricted Data laws, anything the DOE hasn't formally declassified on the topic is classified, to prevent proliferation. However, those laws haven't been enforced since the Progressive case (see Howard below 8-). The Nuclear Weapons FAQ, and this article here, certainly contain info which hasn't been DOE declassified. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 04:10, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I had considered this issue in the past, and again I've come to the same two-fold conclusion. 1) The subject is so complicated that Wikipedia is extremely unlikely to be used as a source of information by individuals or organizations seeking to build nuclear weapon(s). This isn't a topic that a non-expert could casually read about and proceed to build a bomb in his/her basement or garage. The real nuclear proliferation danger comes (mostly) from nations with the facilities necessary to do the type of work that goes into the production of these weapons. 2) Wikipedia should not censor information, even in the case of information such as this (which it might be argued should be supressed). Even though I find this technology morally objectionable, I still believe that information should only be withheld in extraordinary circumstances (which certain aspects of this topic may be). Fuzzform (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Israel's H-bomb?

I reverted an edit by user IP 72.205.14.25, which added the statement: "(however, Israel is suspected of possessing staged nuclear weapons of the Teller-Ulam design)." It is generally accepted that two-stage Teller-Ulam devices require either a dedicated testing program or manufacturing blueprints from a nation which has conducted such a program. Israel had no announced or detected nuclear tests, and only one suspected nuclear test. In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu reported that Israel used lithium-6 and manufactured tritium in its reactor. If true, that suggests boosting. If there is a good source for more than that, it should be cited. HowardMorland (talk) 23:16, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

There seem to be a lot of reports [10] that Israel has had neutron bombs, and these would necessarily be two-stage devices. To take a specific example, "Third Temple's Holy of Holies" cites Hersh's "Samson Option", Burrows and Windrem's "Critical Mass", and Toscano's "Triple Cross" all reporting an Israeli neutron bomb. --JWB (talk) 03:37, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I haven't read the Hersh book (I should get a library copy soon) but the 1999 "Third Temple" article from Maxwell AFB doesn't convince me that the author knows what a neutron bomb is. The neutron bomb references all seem to go back to the October 5, 1986, London Sunday Times article about Vanunu, in which the term "neutron bomb" is included in a list without explanation. At the time, the neutron bomb was incorrectly being tauted as the latest new type of nuclear weapon, and there may have been some incentive to imply that Israel had the latest thing. I have not come across any specific reference to Israel having staged, Teller-Ulam, radiation implosion devices, along with an explanation as to how the testing requirement was overcome or circumvented (i.e., clandestine, undetected testing or theft of complete designs). However, I suppose we could restore the parenthetical statement and cite the sources you mention, although I personally doubt their relevance. HowardMorland (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
The references suggest specific tests, the 1979 Vela Incident off S. Africa and two previous tests hidden by clouds, and specific application for the neutron bomb, stopping Syrian tanks. I'm not completely convinced either, but the sources are some of the most prominent secondary sources on the subject, so it would seem reasonable to mention them somewhere (in fact I think they are in other articles already) along with your reservations. As WP:V says, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that readers should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source."
I haven't found any material on leakage of complete designs to Israel, although we do know that Edward Teller provided guidance to the Israeli program and that other scientists had relationships with both countries. Many of the nuclear powers are known to have received designs from other countries, including Soviet spying on the US, Soviet aid to China, US sharing with Britain, Chinese aid to Pakistan, and the alleged Chinese spying on the US, so knowledge transfer is not implausible in general. Also, there is a later report of Russian scientists coming to Israel after the end of the USSR.
The first, relatively primitive, staged thermonuclear tests by the five official powers seem to have been successful, so it is also quite possible that an untested design could be expected to have a high enough probability of working, especially as a deterrent where certainty is not essential, and would be worth producing and deploying on that basis. Computer simulation has also continued to get easier. And the Israeli deterrent against nearby countries could be delivered by aircraft, without the size/weight limitations of ICBM warheads.
Is design of an "Alarm Clock"-type device really much easier than a radiation implosion device? If anything, "Alarm Clock" seems to be marginally feasible as well as providing very limited multiplication, while the much greater power of radiation implosion seems to provide a more comfortable margin. Optimizing radiation implosion devices to produce the smallest and lightest warhead may be difficult and require testing, but simply making one that works may not be so difficult. Carey Sublette's comparison of the Ivy Mike and W-80 cases starting at NWFAQ 4.4.3.3 seems to indicate a wide variety of parameters can work.
Regarding reports of hints by insiders that some particular thing is tricky and requires testing data, what I've seen come up is boosting rather than radiation implosion. I'm not sure why this should be the case. Maybe they mean that optimizing boosting for minimum size and weight and for modulated energy release with a profile optimized to maximize radiation implosion compression of a secondary is difficult, rather than saying that D-T ignition is hard to achieve in itself. --JWB (talk) 20:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
There are a number of issues with hollow-core boosting (material spalling into the cavity, etc). Radiation implosion is also felt to be "hard" by some, but not all in the field. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 01:00, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with all of the above points.
We could ask Mordechai Vanunu to weigh in on this, but if he has any hope of ever getting out of Israel, he's not supposed to talk to foreigners at all, especially not about this. Anyway, I think his Dimona work was in materials production, not component fabrication and assembly. Ted Taylor and Frank Barnaby both said his knowledge was incomplete.
I would not be terribly surprised to learn of illegal collaboration between the U.S. labs and Israel. It is even possible that some of the subsidence craters in Nevada conceal debris from Israeli nuclear tests, as long as not many people were in on the secret. The U.S. conducted way more tests than any reasonable justification demanded. That would be a great story, but it's easy to start urban myths about a secret industry, because the people who know the truth are not allowed to correct the record.
If we stick to published facts, they all seem traceable to Vanunu in London in 1986. To my knowledge, the first public mention of an Israeli neutron bomb was made on September 28, 1986, in the Sunday Mirror, a London tabloid newspaper, which stated, "An astonishing claim that Israel has built its first neutron bombs has been made to the Sunday Mirror. The bomb is the world's deadliest weapon – it can wipe out humans with a massive dose of deadly radiation, while leaving buildings intact." The Sunday Mirror then dismissed the claim, citing "grave doubts about its authenticity." That sensational article pre-empted the carefully written Sunday Times article (based on Vanunu's information) by a week. It was clearly an effort to associate Vanunu and his "agent" Oscar Guerrero (the Sunday Mirror's source) with fantastic claims and to label both of them as con men, before the Sunday Times article hit the streets. Peter Hounan, chief author of the Sunday Times article, believes the Sunday Mirror story may have been part of a Mossad plot to discredit Vanunu if the plan to kidnap him failed. The successful kidnaping, of course, nullified the con man smear (except in the case of Guerrero, who was not kidnaped, but that's another story). Meanwhile, the neutron bomb story took on a life of its own. A lot of people have cross-referenced each other on it, but without an ultimately credible original source, that I know of. It was mentioned in passing in the Sunday Times article, but not in a credible way. (These quotes are from Hounan's 1999 book, The Woman from Mossad, p. 103.)
Aside from the testing issue, my main question about Israel and two-stage weapons is what would be the motive? The original motive, at Los Alamos, was the quest for a multi-megaton bomb. Israel is more interested in keeping a low profile than in having multi-megaton bombs, or even compact, high-yield missile warheads. The neutron bomb was an obvious possibility with a two-stage device, but one that Sam Cohen, its self-proclaimed inventor, had a hard time selling in the 1950s. The Carter Administration chose it for deployment in Europe a quarter century later, because it would seem to be something new and would be perceived as an escalation. It was eventually ridiculed out of existence. A death ray bomb to kill tank crews never made any military sense. It's hard to see why Israel would want one, except for bragging rights, which is problematic with a non-acknowledged program.
Finally, a neutron bomb doesn't have to be a two-stage thermonuclear bomb. Any low-yield nuclear explosion has a radius of lethality from direct fireball radiation that's greater than its radius of lethality from blast and fire. Some Hiroshima victims survived the blast and fire and died of direct radiation from the fireball. That effect would be more pronounced in a single- or sub-kiloton weapon, even without a low-yield secondary optimized for fusion and neutron escape. So, in my opinion, these dubious references to Israeli neutron bombs don't necessarily shed much light on the question of whether or not Israel has two-stage, radiation implosion weapons in its arsenal. HowardMorland (talk) 04:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

We do know from Vanunu that they were making 6LiD, and that means some kind of thermonuclear weapon. The question then is whether the thermonuclear weapons are staged or not. As you say in the article, the two-stage design is most capable and versatile, and there is little reason to not use it for almost all purposes if you have the ability. Then the question is whether staged weapons are that much more difficult than a one-stage "Alarm Clock", as well as whether the "Alarm Clock" would even be worth pursuing. The US and USSR pursued Alarm Clock/Sloika before staged weapons were known to be superior, and dropped them immediately when that became known.

Why did the US want a multi-megaton bomb? Like the US, Israel also wanted to deter opponents with the threat of mass destruction, and other things being equal, large bombs make mass destruction easier. An unused large bomb is no more high-profile than an unused small bomb. Not testing or announcing, according to "The Bomb in the Basement", is a secret formal commitment exacted by the US; beyond that constraint, Israel does not mind letting its opponents believe it has a powerful arsenal of assured destruction.

Similarly, if the US wanted to deploy neutron bombs in the 70s and 80s, why shouldn't Israel as well? Both faced the threat of massed tank attacks. In retrospect, the neutron bomb was not important, not that much better at its task than conventional small nukes, and was soon made obsolete by developments in nonnuclear antitank weapons, but there is no reason Israel would not have made a similar decision to the US at the time, especially when the US itself was already deploying.

Any low-yield weapon can be a prompt radiation weapon, but "neutron bomb" did have a specific meaning and was not applied to all US low-yield tactical weapons, most of which were deployed well before the neutron bomb was. Certainly a reporter could have gotten terms confused, and the hype about the neutron bomb does not add to credibility, but if the term "neutron bomb" actually was used within the Israeli program, it probably meant the type of design called a "neutron bomb" in the US program.

If all the Israeli neutron bomb reports do trace back to the Sunday Mirror report and that was false, that's certainly a finding worth documenting in Wikipedia, probably in Nuclear weapons and Israel or Mordechai Vanunu. (The former article now says "Vanunu revealed that between 1980-1986 Israel attained the ability to build thermonuclear weapons." and the latter now says "Vanunu gave detailed descriptions of lithium-6 separation and lithium hydride production required for the Teller-Ulam nuclear weapon design.").

Wisconsin Project does quote Taylor as saying that Israel's thermonuclears described by Vanunu appeared relatively unsophisticated, but also says that Israel was continuing research and buying supercomputers. (20 years later, the computer on your desk can probably do the same simulations.) --JWB (talk) 06:35, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

From my local public library, I got The Sampson Option, by Seymour Hersh, 1991. Good book. As I expected, the only reference to Israeli neutron bombs comes from Vanunu in London in 1986. The relevant quote is on page 200: "In 1984, [Vanunu] further reported, a new facility (Unit 93) for large-scale production of tritium was opened. . . . The opening of Unit 93 suggests that full-scale production of neutron weapons began then, for up to twenty grams of tritium are used in each neutron warhead." Not true; it suggests no such thing. Unit 93 is evidence for boosting, which Hersh explains earlier in the same paragraph. It does not imply two-stage thermonuclear weapons. The logical leap from tritium production to neutron bombs is not credible without further evidence, and the lack of an Israeli nuclear testing program argues against it. I agree with your suggestion to update the other articles on this point. I'll take a look at it. Thanks. HowardMorland (talk) 02:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll take a look at Samson Option too.

Depends on what "large-scale" means... If tritium production was far in excess of the several grams per primary needed for boosting, wouldn't that suggest there was some other use intended for tritium? And the number of primaries can be estimated as proportional to plutonium production, or at least that's what published estimates of the number of Israeli weapons are based on. --JWB (talk) 03:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] X-Ray Mirror

I believe it was in the original Progressive article, they state that the x-ray mirror in the H-Bomb is formed from layers of U-238. Multiple layers reflect x-rays by creating many boundaries, each of which reflects a small amount. I don't see any mention of this, and of course it should be checked. DonPMitchell (talk) 07:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

That story, as I described it in The Progressive article, is a mistake which was corrected in the Errata of the December 1979 issue of The Progressive. The proper term is radiation channeling rather than reflection. However, there may still be something to the multiple layers idea, but nothing I know of in the open literature that can be cited. HowardMorland (talk) 15:48, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Lithium-6

Arthur C. Clarke stated in one of his books that the USA got the idea of using Lithium-6 Deuteride by analyzing the fallout from early Soviet tests. That's interesting, but is there some verification? DonPMitchell (talk) 07:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Lithium hydride was first suggested in an unclassified book by a German, Hans Thirring, in 1946. The first Soviet test involving fusion took place in 1953; it may have used Lithium-6 Deuteride before any U.S. test did so. However, according to Herbert York in The Advisors, p 83, in the 1952 Ivy Mike test, and probably also in the 1951 Greenhouse George and Item tests, all of which ignited fusion before any Soviet test, a deliberate choice was made not to use lithium because it would add a complication to the analysis of the experiments. The fact that the first U.S. test using lithium came after the first such Soviet test does not imply that the idea came from the Soviets. HowardMorland (talk) 16:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Times less than", etc.

(Comments on an edit made a few minutes ago)

Expressions such as "[n] times less than" are popular, but logically absurd; sorry! Let's say the original dimension was 5 cm, and the new one, 0.5 cm. The dimension [0.5 cm] is surely not ten times smaller. "Times" refers to the original magnitude, and ten times 5 cm is 50 cm. 0.5 cm is plainly not 50 cm smaller!

"Times greater than", otoh, is not nearly as bad; 15 cm is two times larger than 5 cm -- it's 10 cm larger.

It's a matter of [n] vs. [n-1], and as [n] becomes larger, the "error" decreases. (A thousand times larger is roughly the same as 999 times larger, if one is not being exact.) Nikevich (talk) 06:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)