Critical Mass is that minimum amount of fissionable material needed to maintain a chain reaction
True, only fissionable isotopes that produce enough excess neutrons to sustain a chain reaction can be used directly as fuel.However fertile isotopes that capture neutrons and then transmute to fissionable isotopes can be used indirectly as fuel through a process called breeding.
These are called fissile or fissionable. Fissile isotopes undergo fission, producing sufficient neutrons of sufficient power that a chain reaction can happen, if there is enough of the isotope to support it. The mass sufficient to support a chain reaction is called critical. Atoms of fissionable isotopes will undergo fission when a sufficiently energetic neutron collides with them, but the neutrons they emit when they divide are either insufficient in number or insufficient in energy to sustain an chain reaction. There is a third type of material that can undergo fission, called fertile, which is isotopes that can be caused to capture neutrons, changing into fissile or fissionable isotopes, so the fission does not happen to atoms of the fertile material directly, but to the atoms of the isotopes they become.
The critical mass. With an amount of U-235 or Pu-239, the smallest critical mass will be a sphere. For a nuclear reactor, it will be the minimum number of fuel assemblies loaded to produce a chain reaction.
The smallest amount of a fissionable material that will produce a self-sustaining chain reaction is called the critical mass. This mass of affected by geometry and other factors such as temperature, pressure, and moderator.
In a chain reaction, neutrons released during the splitting of an initial nucleus trigger a series of nuclear fissions.
subcritical - a mass or arrangement of fissionable or fissile material unable to sustain a neutron chain reaction. It can provide a fixed amount of neutron multiplication from a neutron source, but after removal of the neutron source the chain reaction rate drops exponentially.critical - a mass or arrangement of fissionable or fissile material capable of sustaining a constant neutron chain reaction. No increase or decrease. (Nuclear reactors operate at critical)supercritical - a mass or arrangement of fissionable or fissile material capable of not only sustaining a neutron chain reaction, but once initiated the chain reaction rate rises exponentially. (Nuclear fission bombs explode when made supercritical)A nuclear fission bomb must have 2 of these states: subcritical (so that it can't explode until desired) and supercritical (so that it explodes with an effective yield). This requires a rapid "assembly" system using conventional explosives to rearrange the fissile material from subcritical to supercritical in about 1ms. A neutron source starts the chain reaction and the explosion completes in about 1 microsecond.
Because in small samples the probability of a neutron escaping the sample without inducing another fission is bigger. Actually, what matters is the mass of the sample, especially if this mass exceeds the critical mass. Thus, the chain reaction in a smaller sample with sufficiently higher density of fissionable material might not die out, while it dies out in a larger sample with albeit a sufficiently smaller density of fissionable material.
A characteristic of a fissionable substance essential for a chain reaction to sustain itself is the ability to release additional neutrons upon undergoing fission. These neutrons can then continue to collide with other fissionable nuclei, causing a cascade of fission reactions and sustaining the chain reaction.
To make a nuclear bomb, you need the fissionable material such as a Plutonium239 isotope, an explosive to start the nuclear chain reaction, a detonator, and a pusher.
Both nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs involve the process of nuclear fission, where atoms are split to release energy. They both require enriched uranium or plutonium as fuel. However, the main difference is in the controlled chain reaction in reactors for electricity generation versus the uncontrolled chain reaction in bombs for explosive power.
A nuclear chain reaction is one in which the disintegration of one nucleus creates a cascade of nucleons which, in their turn, cause the disintegration of other nuclei and thus the process can sustain itself.