Probably approx. 40 kg of enriched uranium.
An atomic bomb is a nuclear weapon. A nuclear fusion bomb, (hydrogen, is usually much stronger than a nuclear fission bomb (uranium or plutonium). The weapons detonated in Japan during WWII measured about 15 kilotons equivalent of TNT. Today, most nuclear weapons are measured by megaton (1000X kiloton) equivalents up to a bomb built by the Russians with a possible yield of 100 megatons.
Fusion reaction combines isotopes of hydrogen to make helium and release energy. This requires temperatures in the millions of Kelvins to start.Fission reaction breaks up isotopes of heavy elements (Uranium & Plutonium) into lighter elements (fission fragments, a major part of fallout) and release energy. This can start a normal temperatures.
The term atomic bomb, nuclear bomb, and hydrogen bomb are confused/confusing. Atomic bomb and nuclear bomb are generic and basically mean any bomb powered by atomic/nuclear energy fission or fusion. Hydrogen bomb specifically means a bomb powered by fusion. Some specific variants, using correct terminology are:Fission bomb, a bomb fueled by uranium and/or plutoniumFusion bomb, a bomb fueled by hydrogen isotopes (however most fusion bombs 90% of their yield is actually still due to fission of uranium-238 in the radiation casing surrounding the fusion fuel assembly.)Boosted fission bomb, a fission bomb with a hollow sealed core filled with tritium gas. When the fission bomb is detonated the temperature/pressure ignites tritium fusion in the gas, which produces an intense flash of high energy neutrons causing additional fission in the (now vapor) fissile core material, boosting the yield.Neutron bomb, a fusion bomb using a neutron transparent material for the radiation casing instead of uranium-238. A neutron bomb typically has only 10% the yield of a similar design standard fusion bomb but has much less fallout, but kills by prompt neutron radiation instead of blast and fire.etc.
This is hard to compute. The 22 kiloton MK-III Fatman had 6.2 kilograms but of this only a little over 700 grams fissioned. For 1 kiloton you would need roughly 33 grams to fission. But how much more you would need to get the bomb to work reliably depends on too many tricky design details (most classified) to tell. Assuming the same material efficiency as the MK-III, a total of roughly 282 grams would be needed. However this amount is so far below criticality that a superefficient implosion assembly system would be required as well as gas boosting to get that small a yield.I would guess, without access to classified information, that a basic pure fission 1 kiloton bomb would need between 2.5 kilogram to 5 kilogram of plutonium to fission the roughly 33 grams needed for that yield.Material efficiency becomes real bad below about about 10 kilotons unless gas boosting is used. Even the MK-IIIs material efficiency of about 10% is low by today's standards, but the figure is still a good starting point, especially as it is not classified.
Atom bombs work by the principle of atomic fission (splitting large atomic nuclei), while hydrogen bombs work by atomic fusion (combining small atomic nuclei). The hydrogen bomb is hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than the atom bomb. The hydrogen bomb uses an atom bomb as a trigger.The term "atomic bomb" is a general term that can be applied to any nuclear weapon. What kind of weapons are there and where does the hydrogen bomb fit in?There are fission devices (the "regular" atomic bomb), fission-fusion devices (the clean hydrogen bomb) and fission-fusion-fission devices (the dirty hydrogen bomb).In the atomic bomb (fission device), uranium or plutonium is forced into a "critical mass", causing the atoms of the element to fission or "split" into the smaller atoms of other elements. When they split, they give off neutrons that split even more of the atoms (i.e. chain reaction). Each atom gives off a tremendous amount of energy as a tiny fraction of its matter is converted.In the clean hydrogen bomb (fission-fusion device), the heat given off by a fission explosion is directed at a container of fusible hydrogen (deuterium and/or tritium). The heat and pressure causes the hydrogen to fuse into helium, the same process that takes place in the Sun and stars. This reaction produces an incredible amount of energy, because again a tiny amount of matter from each atom is converted.In the dirty hydrogen bomb (fission-fusion-fission device), the energetic neutrons from the fusion explosion are so numerous that a casing of "ordinary" uranium (mostly U-238) will also fission, creating a fantastic amount of energy (up to 90% of the total yield of the bomb can be from this fission). Thicker casings or additional stages could theoretically create massive bombs 1000 times the power of fission bombs. The largest bomb ever tested, the 50-megaton "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union, was built with this design (three stage design: fission primary, fusion secondary, fusion tertiary). If it had used actual uranium around the third stage, it could have yielded 100 megatons or more. However, the fallout from such a bomb would be large and widespread, risking contamination of areas far beyond the target. In the configuration tested, the "Tsar Bomba" was actually the cleanest nuclear bomb ever detonated (in terms of amount of fallout per kiloton of yield), even though it produced more total fallout than any other nuclear bomb ever detonated (because of the very high yield).The design used by modern weapons was created by the physicists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam in 1951.The "Hydrogen" bomb refers to the "Fusion" of a Hydrogen Isotope on an Atomic scale by way of steps of multiple reactions thus yielding a much more powerful explosion upwards of 500 Million Tons of TNT. It is also known as "ThermoNuclear". The "Atom" or "A" bomb refers to the "Fission" or "Fusion" of Uranium or Plutonium in a single step reaction, rather than multiple steps,yielding an explosion.
Approximately 15-25 kg of highly enriched uranium or 6-8 kg of plutonium is typically used in a 100-kiloton bomb. These materials undergo a fission chain reaction to release a huge amount of energy in a nuclear explosion.
An atomic bomb is a nuclear weapon. A nuclear fusion bomb, (hydrogen, is usually much stronger than a nuclear fission bomb (uranium or plutonium). The weapons detonated in Japan during WWII measured about 15 kilotons equivalent of TNT. Today, most nuclear weapons are measured by megaton (1000X kiloton) equivalents up to a bomb built by the Russians with a possible yield of 100 megatons.
A hydrogen bomb is actually a fission-fusion-fission reaction. The primary fission trigger (plutonium) supplies the energy to induce fusion, but then the fusion energy is used to initiate the secondary fission, which is a large amount of uranium. (in a "clean" H bomb, the uranium is replaced with lead, making it much weaker) also, the radiation will affect the surrounding area, creating a large number of isotopes, dramatically increasing the radioactive fallout.-Akilae
As much as 90% of the yield of a hydrogen bomb can be provided by the fission of Uranium-238 in the bomb's final stage tamper caused by the 15MeV neutrons produced by the fusion reaction. Yes, it cannot support a neutron chain reaction, so it is not fissile, but it can fission in the right circumstances and the hydrogen bomb provides those circumstances.On a separate issue Uranium-238 is used in nuclear weapons. Even the earliest atomic bombs used it in their tampers due to its very high density (but it of course did not fission as the energy of the neutrons in those devices was far too low, only about 1MeV).
Fusion reaction combines isotopes of hydrogen to make helium and release energy. This requires temperatures in the millions of Kelvins to start.Fission reaction breaks up isotopes of heavy elements (Uranium & Plutonium) into lighter elements (fission fragments, a major part of fallout) and release energy. This can start a normal temperatures.
The term atomic bomb, nuclear bomb, and hydrogen bomb are confused/confusing. Atomic bomb and nuclear bomb are generic and basically mean any bomb powered by atomic/nuclear energy fission or fusion. Hydrogen bomb specifically means a bomb powered by fusion. Some specific variants, using correct terminology are:Fission bomb, a bomb fueled by uranium and/or plutoniumFusion bomb, a bomb fueled by hydrogen isotopes (however most fusion bombs 90% of their yield is actually still due to fission of uranium-238 in the radiation casing surrounding the fusion fuel assembly.)Boosted fission bomb, a fission bomb with a hollow sealed core filled with tritium gas. When the fission bomb is detonated the temperature/pressure ignites tritium fusion in the gas, which produces an intense flash of high energy neutrons causing additional fission in the (now vapor) fissile core material, boosting the yield.Neutron bomb, a fusion bomb using a neutron transparent material for the radiation casing instead of uranium-238. A neutron bomb typically has only 10% the yield of a similar design standard fusion bomb but has much less fallout, but kills by prompt neutron radiation instead of blast and fire.etc.
The term atom bomb is somewhat ambiguous. The more precise distinction that you are trying to make is between a fission (or uranium or plutonium based) bomb and a fusion (or hydrogen based) bomb. The process of nuclear fission releases a certain amount of energy, and the process of nuclear fusion, per nucleus, releases a much larger amount of energy. Hence, you can build much bigger bombs based on fusion (although they still contain fission bombs which are required to create the high temperature needed for fusion).
Its really hard to say, the only nuclear bomb that might contain that much uranium (probably as depleted uranium) would be a hydrogen fusion bomb with a uranium tamper.Depending on many design features, it would probably weigh a bit under 2 tons and have a yield somewhere between 2 megatons and 20 megatons, most of that produced by fission of the uranium tamper.NO nuclear bomb could ever contain that much weapons grade uranium, as it would be so far beyond critical that it would simply melt in the factory as it was being assembled and kill anyone nearby with neutron and gamma radiation.
The bomb contained about 64 kg of uranium. Of this amount, probably less than a kilogram actually underwent fission, and the energy release was consistent with the transformation of about a half a gram of matter being converted to energy.
This is hard to compute. The 22 kiloton MK-III Fatman had 6.2 kilograms but of this only a little over 700 grams fissioned. For 1 kiloton you would need roughly 33 grams to fission. But how much more you would need to get the bomb to work reliably depends on too many tricky design details (most classified) to tell. Assuming the same material efficiency as the MK-III, a total of roughly 282 grams would be needed. However this amount is so far below criticality that a superefficient implosion assembly system would be required as well as gas boosting to get that small a yield.I would guess, without access to classified information, that a basic pure fission 1 kiloton bomb would need between 2.5 kilogram to 5 kilogram of plutonium to fission the roughly 33 grams needed for that yield.Material efficiency becomes real bad below about about 10 kilotons unless gas boosting is used. Even the MK-IIIs material efficiency of about 10% is low by today's standards, but the figure is still a good starting point, especially as it is not classified.
Atom bombs work by the principle of atomic fission (splitting large atomic nuclei), while hydrogen bombs work by atomic fusion (combining small atomic nuclei). The hydrogen bomb is hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than the atom bomb. The hydrogen bomb uses an atom bomb as a trigger.The term "atomic bomb" is a general term that can be applied to any nuclear weapon. What kind of weapons are there and where does the hydrogen bomb fit in?There are fission devices (the "regular" atomic bomb), fission-fusion devices (the clean hydrogen bomb) and fission-fusion-fission devices (the dirty hydrogen bomb).In the atomic bomb (fission device), uranium or plutonium is forced into a "critical mass", causing the atoms of the element to fission or "split" into the smaller atoms of other elements. When they split, they give off neutrons that split even more of the atoms (i.e. chain reaction). Each atom gives off a tremendous amount of energy as a tiny fraction of its matter is converted.In the clean hydrogen bomb (fission-fusion device), the heat given off by a fission explosion is directed at a container of fusible hydrogen (deuterium and/or tritium). The heat and pressure causes the hydrogen to fuse into helium, the same process that takes place in the Sun and stars. This reaction produces an incredible amount of energy, because again a tiny amount of matter from each atom is converted.In the dirty hydrogen bomb (fission-fusion-fission device), the energetic neutrons from the fusion explosion are so numerous that a casing of "ordinary" uranium (mostly U-238) will also fission, creating a fantastic amount of energy (up to 90% of the total yield of the bomb can be from this fission). Thicker casings or additional stages could theoretically create massive bombs 1000 times the power of fission bombs. The largest bomb ever tested, the 50-megaton "Tsar Bomba" of the Soviet Union, was built with this design (three stage design: fission primary, fusion secondary, fusion tertiary). If it had used actual uranium around the third stage, it could have yielded 100 megatons or more. However, the fallout from such a bomb would be large and widespread, risking contamination of areas far beyond the target. In the configuration tested, the "Tsar Bomba" was actually the cleanest nuclear bomb ever detonated (in terms of amount of fallout per kiloton of yield), even though it produced more total fallout than any other nuclear bomb ever detonated (because of the very high yield).The design used by modern weapons was created by the physicists Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam in 1951.The "Hydrogen" bomb refers to the "Fusion" of a Hydrogen Isotope on an Atomic scale by way of steps of multiple reactions thus yielding a much more powerful explosion upwards of 500 Million Tons of TNT. It is also known as "ThermoNuclear". The "Atom" or "A" bomb refers to the "Fission" or "Fusion" of Uranium or Plutonium in a single step reaction, rather than multiple steps,yielding an explosion.
To make a fission atomic bomb you just take either uranium or plutonium, which are fast-fission materials and find a way to smash the soul out of them so they can make neutrons to continue the chain reaction. You either just take some fissionable uranium, make a bullet out of one and a ball of the other, build a cannon-shaped bomb that shoots the bullet of uranium into the ball of uranium at the end of the barrel - and boom. To make the second kind, you need some plutonium. Plutonium is easy to obtain but it is extremely hard to make into a bomb, because if you shoot two masses of plutonium together like the uranium bomb style, they fission so much easier that they start reacting before they touch and blow themselves apart before anything can fission, so you will need to make a ball of plutonium crush in itself using a shock wave made by a explosion. You surround a ball of fissionable plutonium with explosive stuff. When the surrounding explosives goes boom, the shock waves made by the explosives hits the ball. This causes the plutonium to supercompress itself together - and boom.