Nuclear Fusion vs Nuclear Fission

[MAKO69 186]

Well when the both go bad I suggest Duck and Cova with a little bit of time distance and shielding.

[+Tailspin 3]

We did Duck and Cover in grade school. ca. 1961-66 for me.

 

Fission bombs work basically by getting enough high grade fissile material (Uranium or Plutonium) close enough together long enough to creat a sustained chain reaction (critical mass). They didn't even bother to test the "gun type" Little Boy. It basically just fired one mass of fissile material into another mass of fissile material to reach critical mass. The difficulty with the implosion bomb was in designing the spherical HE charge to explode in such a precise way that would sustain a reaction. Thats the basics anyway. Bomb designers incorporated other materials that actually relfected neutrons back into the reaction to cause more fission and other little "tricks" that improved yield. The implosion bomb was favored because it was much more efficient (used less material and acheived greater yields) than "gun bombs". Get something wrong and the fissile material tends to blow itself apart before enough reactions take place to creat the desired release of energy and the chain reaction fizzels out. Something the N. Koreans apparently "discovered" in their first known actual test of a weapon.

 

H-bombs? Harder for me to grasp the physics behind them.

 

BTW...I live only a few miles, as the crow flies, from one the last operating Gasseous Diffusion uranium processing plants in the US near Paducah Ky...at least I think they are still producing U235? There is a plant in my home town that makes UF6 for that plant and others. Can you say ground zero?

[Mike463 0]

Nice introductory video (I worked on the B61 from '81 to '92)-

 

 

Yours, Mike

USAF Retired

[+331Killerbee 840]

BTW...I live only a few miles, as the crow flies, from one the last operating Gasseous Diffusion uranium processing plants in the US near Paducah Ky...at least I think they are still producing U235? There is a plant in my home town that makes UF6 for that plant and others. Can you say ground zero?

 

 

We still have one in Operation here at Oak Ridge, TN. It's for Experiments with ORNL. That's the Oak Ridge National Labatory. I used to worked full time at the Trigger Unit. Building A339, Y-12 Weapons Facility for 10 Years after My Retirment from the USMC and early Retired from them in 2002. I still do Consulting for UT-Bectel at Y-12. Y-12 is still Manufacturing Weapons grade material. We just don't use the Gasseous Diffusion Method. K-25, Which used to be the World Largest Building under one Roof. It was built in 1942. It used to be the Gasseous Deffusion Facility generating U235 and U238. Demolishion started in 1995 and was just completed two Years ago. X-10 Facility is still on line. It generates Fuel Rods for Power Plants and Reactors for Naval Ships and Submarines. We have the Graphite Reactor here. The First one of it's kind at the time. ORNL has just completed the "Super Collider" Plant for futher Expirments.

 

We don't use Gasseous Diffusion for Weapons Grade Material any more. We get our Material from TVA. The Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant sends Us their Spent Rods for Reprocessing. We generate Weapons Grade Material out of that. It's safer and cost effective.

 

Don't ask Me what I used to do in the Trigger Unit. By Law, I'm not allowed to. I can disclose in about 23 more Years if I'm still alive then.

 

My House is exactly 6 Miles from the City Limits of Oak Ridge. I know exactly where "Ground Zero" is. .......Not to Mention, TVA has 4 Nuclear Power Plants within 150 miles of Oak Ridge.....

 

 

331KillerBee

Edited June 2, 2009 by 331Killerbee

[+Tailspin 3]

Very interesting KB. Actually when it comes to all that stuff I'm just a "Googlespert". I've read a lot of information...all available to the public, of course...and am just regurgitating that. I do know that the Union Carbide (now Martin Marietta) plant at Paducah was involved in dismantling some weapons components and recovering all the "valuables" from them. Rumors abound about the "gold vault" that contains gold recovered from electrical contacts and such from those components. They are getting ready, in the process actually, of shutting down the Paducah plant. Too bad. The industry supported a lot of families in my area.

 

On the "ground zero" side...oddly, or maybe not so much, folks around here weren't into building bomb shelters. Not much use, I suppose.

[+Dave 2,322]

E=MC2 V^+5_67 to the 100th power. Having given that forumla. B+7=V/67x34/56 makes it equal to about 0.000000051 KT (squared)

[+Dave 2,322]

(see also, Bikini Atoll)

 

Well after they nuked it a few times there was no bikini atoll.

[JediMaster 451]

Yes, at that point it became the Nude Atoll.

[+Tailspin 3]

Well after they nuked it a few times there was no bikini atoll.

 

Hmmm....I usually got those results with tequila.

[zmatt 2]

Bikini Atoll is still there. They didn't actually detonate any of the weapons on land there. Only in the Atoll itself. Many sport divers go there now to dive the wrecks. The place is pretty safe, but you can't eat the food.

[+Dave 2,322]

Bikini Atoll is still there. They didn't actually detonate any of the weapons on land there. Only in the Atoll itself. Many sport divers go there now to dive the wrecks. The place is pretty safe, but you can't eat the food.

 

It was a joke zmatt. Get it, no bikini atoll? No bikini at all......

[zmatt 2]

Ah yeah sorry, I guess I'm taking things too seriously today. >.<

[+Gepard 11,295]

The story of the "shadows of Hiroshima" is widely published, but i think it is wrong.

In the german air magazin "Fliegerrevue Extra" was an article were a former secret british report from September or October 1945 was published. The brits said, that the people whos shadows are still today to see, survided the bomb explosion for a certain time, walked away and died later caused by the heavy burned skin. The heavy destruction of Hiroshima. was said, was caused by the typical japanese buildings made mainly by wood and paper. Stronger buildings were not as hard damaged. It was also said, that the Hiroshima bomb when used against London would cause around 50.000 dead and wounded civilists.

 

The nuclear weapons are not really worth its price. You can use them only effectivly against civil targets as towns and factories, but not against troops on the field. With the Hiroshima bomb you cant even completly stop the advantage of an attacking panzer battalion. over 60% of the tanks would survive such a strike. A wing of A-10 is much more effective against it.

[i fight by 1 0]

?

Edited June 4, 2009 by i fight by 1

[JediMaster 451]

The weapons used on Japan in 1945 were very weak compared to what was developed in the following decades.

 

Just because the first rifle was highly inaccurate with low muzzle velocity and likely wouldn't penetrate a heavy leather jacket at 500 yds doesn't mean "all rifles are ineffective weapons."

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Gepard::

The nuclear weapons are not really worth its price. You can use them only effectivly against civil targets as towns and factories, but not against troops on the field.

Civil targets are what Nucs were made for, but were nothing more than a slight step up from the original sins of Guernica and Dresden, and a buttload of conventionally flattened civilian towns in every country (well except in Ussia/Canada).

[+Gepard 11,295]

Okay, why i say the nukes are widely senseless for military use?

Let take the advancing tank battallion as example. As i have learned it in the bad old time a soviet tank battallion consist of 31 vehicles. (3 vehicles/ platoon, 3 platoons + vehicle for company leader = 1 company, 3 companies + vehicle for battalion leader = 1 battallion)

Under the conditions of nuclear warfare the doctrine said, that 15 vehicles should be set maximum at 1km wide attack field, what means, that a battallion covers 2 km.

If you use a 10kt nuclear bomb to stop this advancing battalion you will have a destruction diameter of that weapon against tanks in the size of between 800 and 900 meters. What means that 60% of the tanks will survive and continue the attack. A simple mind will also come to this simple calculation: i need a destruction diameter that must be twice as high, also i need a weapon which has the dubbled strenght. In our example 20kt bomb instead 10kt.

Would be nice if this would be correct, but the problem of nuclear weapons is that the annihilation capability climbs not directly with the strenght of the weapon.

If i look at the charts i find, that a 20kt bomb will annihilate tanks i a diameter of 1100 - 1200 meters. To annihilate the advancing tank battalion you would need a bomb of nearly 100 kt. To come to a dubbled kill diameter i need a ten times stonger weapon! What a waste!

Not to count the size of the poissened territory which is useless for years. If you want to conquer and use nukes you will conquer a poissened radioactive land. If you want to defend your contry with nukes you will kill yourself.

 

Thatswhy nukes are only weapons of terrorism and useless for military.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Sounds about right. Your battlefield scenario calls for multiple small nucs, not larger yields. Small nucs, like artillery for battlefield use or SAMs for anti-aircraft use, target military units "on the move." Big Nucs were made for well behind the lines, which would include civil but also rear military targets....say...big bomber bases or ICBM sites for example.

[Mike463 0]

Using nuclear weapons will not render the countryside useless for decades (people live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

 

Nuclear weapons, depending on yield, were designed for a number of contingencies- artillery fired projectiles for large enemy formations (like we faced in NATO against the Warsaw Pact), aerial bombs for airfields, depots, command posts, missile fields, sub bases, etc. Atomic demolition munitions to take out bridges, dams, airfields, etc.

 

Weapons like the AIR-2A and AIM-54 Nuclear Falcon were designed specifically for formations of aircraft consisting of Mya-4, Tu-95 (let's not forget Nike Hercules, BOMARC, SA-2, SA-5, etc). Early TN bombs such as the Mk17 were designed not for cities, but military industrial areas. More info on the Nuclear Weapon Archive website-

 

http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/

 

If you truly want to educate yourself, read "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" by Samuel Glasstone.

 

The fact that the DPRK and Iran are pursuing nuclear weapons (thanks in part to A.Q. Khan) shows that nuclear disarmament is not credible.

 

Yours, Mike

[zmatt 2]

^QFT!

 

I don't think nuclear disarmament is possible. Once the genie is out it ain't coming back in. The only thing that I think will render nuclear weapons undesirable is the development of something more powerful and cheaper or cleaner. I'd imagine anti matter warheads wouldn't be too far off now that the LHC is up. It doesn't take much to wipe out a place the size of NYC.

 

I think air burst nukes clear up in a matter of days or weeks. It's when you set them off in water or underground is where there can be a problem. Then it can get into the ecosystem.

Quoting the wiki article on operation crossroads

 

As with all three previous nuclear detonations -- Trinity, Little Boy (Hiroshima), and Fat Man (Nagasaki) -- the Crossroads Able shot was an air burst,[2] detonating high enough in the air to prevent surface materials from being drawn into the fireball. With an air burst, the radioactive fission products rise into the stratosphere and become part of the global, rather than the local, environment. Air bursts were officially described as "self-cleansing."[21] There was no significant local fallout.

 

They will have intense radiation during the explosion and anyone in the area will either die instantly of it, die the next few days or will have serious health complications afterwords, but anyone who shows up afterwords is fine. They have a mazda car plant there and I haven't heard of anyone getting cancer from driving an RX-8.

Edited June 7, 2009 by zmatt

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Good to see you Mike.

 

The way I see it, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were airbursts at good altitude, I think to maximize blast over widest area, so fireball not close to ground, and so relatively little radiation was injected into the cities below. Now the rising dusty stem cloud mixes into the post-fireball radiation but is spread down wind. I wonder what the fallout was some 100km or so from the cities. Never heard anything about that...cos I never looked duh. I take it the Pacific islands suffered bad from ground tests in the crumbly coral.

 

Very interesting nuc site that take issue with some of Glasstone's stuff. Some good vids of high altitude tests, but ~very~ painfully slow fully loading since so much over time is poasted on one page.

~> http://glasstone.blogspot.com/

 

Not sure about Iran anymore especially after the missing WMD disaster and then all the "contained to subprime" baloney we were spoonfed. Stumbled on this...

 

US intel confirms Iran not developing nukes (Fnebuary 2009)

The new chief of US intelligence has confirmed the findings of a 2007 intelligence report that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.

:

:

:etc...

~ http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=8557...ionid=351020104

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

zmatt you beat me to it, was thinking the same thing about radioactivity and burst height.

 

LHC...so much conspiracy comedy with that one, causing a black hole to end the world and stuff. The final lepisode of Canadian LEXX, the TV series, had the Earth being destroyed by an experimental device to find the HiGGs boson. It worked but the device shrank the Earth to the size of a pea.

 

Nuc bunker busters: I first heard Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator during the last Bush admin. Whoever made that name, they had to be LEXX fans.

[zmatt 2]

zmatt you beat me to it, was thinking the same thing about radioactivity and burst height.

 

LHC...so much conspiracy comedy with that one, causing a black hole to end the world and stuff. The final lepisode of Canadian LEXX, the TV series, had the Earth being destroyed by an experimental device to find the HiGGs boson. It worked but the device shrank the Earth to the size of a pea.

 

Nuc bunker busters: I first heard Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator during the last Bush admin. Whoever made that name, they had to be LEXX fans.

 

Heh forget the hype. The main proponent behind the black hole thing is a high school science teacher. I think the guys in France know what they are doing. And if they do make a black hole we will be dead before we know it so it doesn't matter.

 

It would be funny if they didn't find the Higgs Boson. One of my buddies is a physics student and the way he articulated it is, if they don't find it, then most everything in modern quantum physics could be wrong, and they have to re-evaluate all of it. Now that woudl be funny. Because honestly, the physics guys are some of the more arrogant guys around. I can't think of any better way to bring them down to earth than by showing that the thing they spent theri lives studying is all wrong. Of course the likely hood of that is slim.

 

And the actualy anti-matter production will be measured in atoms not grams. Anyone see angels and demons? They way over stated the ability to produce anti-matter.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

True, but there was a time long ago when some said nucs were not possible because of inability to produce enough.

 

HiGGs....Arthur Eddington I think, half jokingly said that he was certain the neutrino did not exist, but had no doubt physicists would be able to make them. I think he was kinda referencing the idea about quantum theory that observation creates results, or something like that. Pretty funny anyways.

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Ah...here...back in 1938...

 

Eddington::

Just now nuclear physicists are writing a great deal about hypothetical particles called neutrinos supposed to account for certain peculiar facts observed in ß-ray disintegration. We can perhaps best describe the neutrinos as little bits of spin-energy that have got detached. I am not much impressed by the neutrino theory. In an ordinary way I might say that I do not believe in neutrinos... But I have to reflect that a physicist may be an artist, and you never know where you are with artists. My old-fashioned kind of disbelief in neutrinos is scarcely enough. Dare I say that experimental physicists will not have sufficient ingenuity to make neutrinos? Whatever I may think, I am not going to be lured into a wager against the skill of experimenters under the impression that it is a wager against the truth of a theory. If they succeed in making neutrinos, perhaps even in developing industrial applications of them, I suppose I shall have to believe—though I may feel that they have not been playing quite fair.

 

— Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Tamer Lectures (1938), The Philosophy of Physical Science (1939), 112.

 

Quote site ~ http://www.todayinsci.com/E/Eddington_Arth...-Quotations.htm

hehe