What was a radioactive element that the atomic bomb was made from?

Answer 1

The US built a weapon and fired it as a test shot to prove the technology. Then the two bombs that were dropped on Japan were built and deployed. As regards the fissile material in the weapons, the Trinity test shot used plutonium, as did the second bomb dropped on Japan, the "Fat Man" weapon deployed over Nagasaki. The "Little Boy" deployed over Hiroshima, the first use of a nuclear weapon other than the test, used uranium as the fissile material. Links are provided below for fact checking and further investigation.

Answer 2

The first a-bomb was made out of enriched uranium (80% uranium-235, 20% uranium-238). The second was plutonium-239 with a few percent gallium alloyed in (to stabilize it in the malleable delta phase).

The atom bomb is made up of uranium-235 and/or plutonium-239 depending on design.

Answer 3

The atomic bomb is based on the principle of fission (breaking atoms apart) or fusion (putting atoms or fragments of atoms together). Fission is when the nucleus of an atom splits releasing an enormous amount of energy, this then can set off a chain reaction which causes a bunch of atoms to fission. Physicists use about 52 kg of Uranium-235 (this is called the "critical mass" and is the amount needed to have U-235 fission and cause a major chain reaction) and could then be dropped from a plane.

AnswerIf the question is referring NOT to the design of an atomic bomb (which is better answered under the question "How does the atomic bomb work?"), but the actual industrial process used to assemble a working bomb from an already tested and validated blueprint, here is some relevant information (this answer refers specifically to fission weapons and "fusion-boosted" fission weapon, not fusion or boosted fusion weapons):

Regardless of the design of an atomic bomb, the primary component is the fission fuel. In a "gun-type" bomb, Uranium-235 is the fuel. In an "implosion" bomb, Plutonium-239 is the fuel. A fusion-boosted atomic bomb uses the implosion design, with the addition of gaseous tritium (Hydrogen-3). Producing the appropriate amounts of fuel for bombs is expensive, time-consuming, and difficult.

Uranium-235 generally requires some sort of ultra refining process, most commonly a cascading cyclotron setup using gaseous Uranium. This process starts with raw uranium yellowcake (ore), refines out all non-Uranium elements, then heats the Uranium to vaporize it. A typical refining facility uses 10-20,000 cyclotrons, and consumes an enormous amount of electricity (several dozen Megawatts) to produce 1 kg of weapons-grade U-235 from several hundred tons of yellowcake.

Plutonium is produced using what is known as a "fast-breeder" reactor design. This reactor uses standard U-238 fuel, and bombards it with neutrons during operation, turning some of the U-239 into P-239 (plus some into P-240). This is done for a period of time, after which the fuel rods are removed from the reactor, and the rods are refined, separating the P from the remaining U. This process is delicate, as P-240 is NOT good for a bomb, and the longer a rod is in the reactor, the larger percentage of P-240 is produced. So, there is a balancing act between shorter periods of time in the reactor (producing a lower percentage of P-240, but a lower amount total of P-239), and a longer time (requiring additional post-processing).

Tritium is generally also produced in fast-breeder reactors, at the same time as the P-239 is. Tritium results from exposure of water to the fission rods - as it is gaseous in form, the reactor must be designed to capture out-gassing vapor from the reactor pile. This captured gas must then have the tritium separated out (usually via a chemical process). Tritium's major problem is its very short self-life: with a half-life of under 12.5 years, bombs using tritium must be frequently "recharged" by replacing the old gas reservoir with new tritium.

After the fuel has been refined, the bomb assembly is usually done at a single facility. There are several other significant items which must be obtained ahead of the assembly:

• High-quality explosives (generally, some form of RDX derivative). Particularly in the case of the implosion design, explosives with very specific shock-wave producing characteristics must be used.
• Very high-precision detonators and timing circuitry (which must be radiation-hardened)
• A neutron source (one of several rather unusual elements)
• Several other rare-earth elements and "exotic" compounds, which are required for their specific radiation-resistance or neutron-affinity, to be used in the construction of the atomic "pit" (the configuration of the fissile fuel)

After these additional materials are obtained, the assembly can begin. Most designs require a rather high level of machining precision, which requires standard CNC-level industrial machine tools, as hand-tooling isn't of sufficient precision.

Overall, there are significant problems with manufacturing atomic bombs, as without fairly sophisticated preparations and precautions, there are two main dangers: (a) contamination due to improper handling of the fuel at any stage (from mining, to refining, to processing, to machining the final bomb assembly), and (b) even small mistakes may result in a bomb either failing completely or producing a significantly lower yield than the design would optimally produce.

Answer 4

The original atomic bomb used a radioactive isotope of Uranium (U235) as its energy source, but other heavy elements, such as Plutonium, could also be used.

Also, the Hydrogen bomb is often referred to as an "atom" bomb or "atomic" bomb, which it is, but it works by nuclear fusion, not nuclear fission.

Answer 5

Uranium and Plutonium