0
Oralloy is an acronym for "Oak Ridge Alloy". Which is an alloy of Uranium 235 and Uranium 238. The U235 is the fissile isotope that is used in fission type nuclear weapons. The actual concentration is classified, but generally U235 is greater than 90%.
Wiki User
∙ 14y ago
Add your answer:
Earn +20 pts
What were the 2 famous nuclear bombs in World War 2?
MK-I Littleboy, dropped on Hiroshima; an Oralloy (93.5% Uranium-235) gun bomb.MK-III Fatman, dropped on Nagasaki; a Plutonium implosion bomb.
What two letter nonstandard 'element symbol' did the US AEC use in memos and letters in the late 1950s for highly enriched weapons grade Uranium?
"Oy", Oralloy, also known as Oak Ridge Alloy.
The concentration of U235 in the atomic bomb?
The references I have state Oralloy is 93.5% U235. Oralloy (Oak Ridge Alloy) was used in US Uranium atomic bombs as the fissile material. However they also say that any enrichment 20% U235 or higher is fissile and could be used to make a bomb, it would require a higher critical mass to work though. One source I have states that early Soviet Uranium atomic bombs used ~97% U235, but the US felt this level of enrichment to be unnecessary and excessively expensive.
What is the cost price of a nuclear weapon grade uranium?
In very round figures, the cost of enough Oralloy (93.5% HEU) or Plutonium to make a bomb is somewhere between $100,000 and $1,000,000, with Plutonium being a bit cheaper at this time.
How are nuclear weapons fueled?
Fission weapons use Oralloy (93.5% Uranium-235 HEU) and/or Plutonium-239 as fuel.Wet fusion explosives use a cryogenic mixture of liquid Deuterium and liquid Tritium as fuel. These are not practical weapons.Dry fusion weapons use Lithium Deuteride as fuel.
What is the major substance used to make nuclear weapons?
The most common materials used as "fuels" are plutonium, oralloy (i.e. highly enriched uranium), and lithium deuteride. Smaller amounts of deuterium and/or tritium gas are used in some devices. For the nonnuclear parts of the bombs many other materials are used, much as they would in conventional bombs.
What role did Hanford Engineer Works and the Oak Ridge nuclear facility play in the creation of the atomic bombs that ended World War 2?
Oak Ridge was responsible for Uranium enrichment (oralloy) and small scale Plutonium production reactor (X-10) prototype development. Hanford was responsible for operation of Plutonium production reactors (B-reactor, etc.) and fuel pellet reprocessing to extract Plutonium.
What was another name and the yield of the highest yield US stockpiled pure fission bomb - the MK-18?
The Mk-18 bomb was also known as the SOB -- the Super Oralloy Bomb. It had a design yield of about 500 kilotons. With an advanced 92 point implosion system and over 4 critical masses of fissile material in the core (60kg highly enriched uranium pit, and a uranium tamper) it was a dangerous weapon -- even an accidental firing of one of the detonators causing a "fizzle" would have produced a significant nuclear yield (in the kiloton range).
Where did the building of atomic bombs take place?
The a-bomb was built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee - just outside Knoxville.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------All atomic bombs built in 1945-1947 were built in Los Alamos, NM. Oak Ridge, TN only supplied the oralloy (Oak Ridge "alloy": weapons grade 80% enriched uranium) while Hanford, WA supplied the plutonium and polonium. The Navy supplied cordite and high explosives. Sandia in Albuquerque, NM supplied the custom bomb casings and electronics. Later factories (e.g. PANTEX in TX, Rocky Flats in CO) were built to do the assembly.
What do scientists have to do with the uranium before using in a nuclear bomb?
To use natural uranium in a bomb either of 2 things must be done first, both are expensive and require large infrastructure investment to do them:Enrich the uranium from 0.72% uranium-235 (natural) to 93.5% uranium-235 (Oralloy or HEU).Process the uranium to turn some of the uranium-238 to plutonium-239 in a reactor then chemicallly separate the plutonium from the rest of the irradiated material chemically.In WW2 the US did step 1 at Oak Ridge, TN using a gigantic gaseous diffusion enrichment plant and an electromagnetic separation plant; and step 2 at Hanford, WA using several graphite moderated reactors and large chemical separation plants called "canyons".
What college's that contruct nuclear weapons?
None. The University of California system has provided Administrative Services under contract with the Department of Energy for both Los Alamos and Livermore weapons labs since their initiation, but they participate in neither design nor construction of the weapons. No college or university can even teach nuclear weapons design as that material is all classified Top Secret-Q (although I firmly believe that any physics grad student would have no trouble designing a basic spherical implosion design based on either oralloy and/or plutonium using publicly available data and modern freeware hydrodynamics codes. building it is another issue though) (designing a fusion bomb would be harder, requiring radiation transport code, although I don't find running freeware code I have found publicly available radiation transport code written at Los Alamos for use in fusion bomb design in the 1970s. It would take a bit of work to make it run on new machines.)
What chemicals make a 20th century nuclear bomb?
I cannot list them all because from 1945 to 2000 they went through too many changes and improvements in all their features to tabulate here. I will attempt to list the components of the 1945 MK-1 (Little Boy - Hiroshima) and MK-3 (Fatman - Nagasaki) bombs:MK-1Casing - steel alloy and paintBattery - probably lead-acidRadar antennas - copper, bakelite, etc.Arming system - vacuum tube and relay electronics (glass, tungsten, copper, iron, etc.)Gun - steel alloyTarget - oralloy (93.5% uranium-235), depleted uranium tamperBullet - oralloyPropellent - corditeNeutron sources - beryllium and polonium with very thin gold foil separating themMK-3Casing - steel alloy and paintBattery - probably lead-acidRadar antennas - copper, bakelite, etc.Arming system - vacuum tube and relay electronics (glass, tungsten, copper, iron, etc.)X-Unit - high speed vacuum tube electronics (glass, tungsten, copper, etc.)Explosive lenses - fast Composition-B and slow BaratolSustainer - fast Composition-BPad - feltPusher - aluminumTamper - depleted uraniumCore - nickel plated plutoniumNeutron source - beryllium and polonium with very thin gold foil separating them
