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Nuclear Weapons

This category is for questions about weapons that use nuclear fission or fusion to gain explosive power.

3,869 Questions

How long does the negative effects of nuclear bomb last?

Depends on conditions:

  • A typical airburst the area can usually be reentered almost immediately, if you have radiation monitors with you to look for hot spots first.
  • A surface or subsurface burst produces high levels of contamination and the area should not be entered at all until radiation monitors indicate levels are safe.

In either case you will probably require respirators to prevent inhaling alpha emitters and not eat or drink in the area to avoid ingesting alpha emitters. If you bring in outside clean water and are skilled at drinking without touching the mouth of the container with your lips that is probably OK.

See "Radiological Defense" (4 vol. set) AFSWP, 1948

How far and fast can nukes travel?

Nuclear missiles can travel intercontinental distances, with ranges varying based on the specific type and design of the missile. In terms of speed, nuclear missiles can travel at speeds of several kilometers per second, depending on the missile's propulsion system.

What did the bomb use to ignite?

Sorry- we are going to have to ask you to be more specific- your question is too broad for a meaningful answer. Early bombs used a burning fuse. Bombs in use today can be detonated by electrical or mechanical fuses in dozens of ways. Good questions equal good answers. Please rephrase yours and repost.

What happens if you have nuclear weapons?

Basically if you have nuclear weapons, I can really tell that your enemies do not want to mess around with you. If they mess around with you and want to destroy your country, you can nuke their whole entire World.

Is nuclear energy potential energy?

No, nuclear energy is not considered potential energy. Nuclear energy is the energy released during nuclear reactions, such as fission or fusion, and is a form of kinetic energy associated with the movement of atomic particles.

Why does it take so much energy to produce a nuclear weapon?

Enrichment from 0.7% Uranium-235 to 93% Uranium-235 is a very energy intensive process no matter how it is done. Separating Plutonium from production reactor fuel pellets is expensive requiring special shielded remote control workstations.

Which countries have hydrogen bombs?

Countries known to have hydrogen bombs in their possession include the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom. Israel is also believed to possess nuclear weapons including hydrogen bombs, though they have not officially confirmed this.

What is a stable isotope of hydrogen and an essential part of the hydrogen bomb?

Deuterium is a stable isotope of hydrogen, with one proton and one neutron in its nucleus. It is used in the fusion stage of a hydrogen bomb to initiate the explosive chain reaction.

Who created the nuclear model of an atom?

Ernest Rutherford is credited with creating the nuclear model of an atom. In 1911, his gold foil experiment demonstrated that atoms have a small, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. This model laid the foundation for our modern understanding of atomic structure.

What is the price of plutonium on the blackmarket?

The price of plutonium on the black market is highly variable and difficult to determine accurately. It is illegal to buy and sell plutonium without proper authorization due to its highly dangerous and illegal nature. Engaging in such transactions is highly risky and could lead to severe legal consequences.

How is heat formed?

Heat is formed through the transfer of energy between particles within a substance. This energy transfer causes the particles to move faster, resulting in an increase in temperature. Heat can be generated through various processes such as combustion, friction, and nuclear reactions.

How much does it cost to make a nuclear weapon?

A absolutely gigantic amount! First you need to mine hundreds of tons of uranium ore, then you need to purify it, by conversion to uranium hexaflouride. I will not go into the detail of this process, but the resulting uranium hexaflouride is VERY toxic. THen the uranium hexaflouride needs to go through one of two processes: gaseous diffusion of ultra-high speed centrifuging. The first dydtem is the one used for bulk U-235 (the resulting weapons grade uranium) during the Manhattan project. It uses baffles and filters (made of things like tungsten-zirconium alloys) to separate the U-238 (the depleted uranium that makes up 95% of the uranium ore) form the U-235. The second process is centrifuging, where the uranium hexafluoride is spun at 500 MPH until the heavier U-238 is separated. The uranium is the only really expensive part in a gun-type weapon, but the big weapons,fusion bombs use plutonium which production is to complicated to go over here.

Can titanium stop a nuclear bomb radiation?

Not completely. The gamma and neutron radiation are the hardest to stop, and they can really only be attenuated. It typically takes a few feet of most metals to attenuate gamma to safe exposure levels and denser metals are always better (titanium is not all that dense). Neutron radiation is not effectively attenuated except by strong neutron absorbers like boron and cadmium. Reactor shielding is typically composed of alternating layers of a couple inches of lead plate and a foot or so of borated concrete, until sufficient attenuation has been obtained for both gamma and neutrons.

Why is it dangerous to use nuclear power to make electricity?

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Radioactivity, nuclear wastes that will be around for hundred or thousands of years, power plants that can blow up easy if you don't know what you are doing, nuclear material that can be stolen and be used to make atomic weapons. All nuclear power does is to boil water and make steam. There are far easier, less dangerous, or expensive ways to make steam. Restrict nuclear power to aircraft carriers, submarines and deep space satellites that go away from the sun (and out of the range of solar panels).

How fast does a nuclear bomb explode?

A pure fission bomb completes its detonation in less than 10 microseconds, the fireball reaches full size in a few milliseconds. A fusion bomb takes somewhat longer but is typically more powerful.

How many nuclear bombs are in England?

The precise number is classified, & not publicly available...

Probably there are 150-200 British built nuclear warheads for the American supplied Trident SLB Missile system. It's also possible that some smaller nuclear warheads have been developed for the Tomahawk cruise missiles also carried by Royal Navy nuclear submarines, but this is speculative!

Officially, all the "free-fall" nuclear bombs once carried by the RAF's "Strike Command"/ "V Force" aircraft have been decommissioned, but many suspect that some (maybe a hundred or so) have been upgraded & retained for "contingencies".

There are no longer any US controlled nuclear warheads based permanently in Britain, although nuclear armed American submarines operate routinely from UK naval bases under joint facility agreements between UK & US Governments.

The British Army (as per current NATO doctrine/ international arms control agreements/ treaties) no longer maintains/ controls any tactical nuclear weapons systems.

Bottom line, however, is that no-one apart from the Prime Minister, Intelligence & Defence Chiefs, & probably some very senior Civil Servants, knows the exact number of nuclear weapons currently retained by the UK: in order effectively to deter, it's best to keep potential enemies guessing...

What are uses for nuclear reactions?

Nuclear reactions are used in nuclear power plants to generate electricity, in nuclear weapons for military purposes, in medical imaging and cancer treatment, as a power source for spacecraft, and in food irradiation to kill bacteria and increase shelf life.

How much of the US use of uranium?

Used for what?

  • light water moderated reactors typically use 3% U-235 enriched uranium
  • heavy water moderated reactors can use 0.72% U-235 natural uranium
  • graphite moderated reactors use from 0.72% U-235 natural uranium to 93.5% U-235 enriched uranium depending on the exact reactor design
  • fast (unmoderated) reactors (some research reactors and breeder reactors) need at least 20% U-235 enriched uranium, with 93.5% U-235 enriched uranium being most common
  • nuclear uranium fission bombs need at least 20% U-235 enriched uranium, with 93.5% U-235 enriched uranium being most common (the WW2 Littleboy bomb used 80% U-235 enriched uranium)
  • nuclear plutonium fission bombs use plutonium, not uranium
  • both uranium and plutonium fission bombs use a 0.2% to 0.71% depleted uranium tamper
  • many nuclear fusion bombs use an outer casing made of either 0.2% to 0.71% depleted uranium or 0.72% U-235 natural uranium to increase yield by up to a factor of 10
  • some armor penetrating bullets use 0.2% U-235 depleted uranium
  • some tank armor uses 0.2% U-235 depleted uranium
  • civilian uses such as: radiation shielding, pigments/dyes, aircraft trim weights, industrial products, racing sailboat keels, etc. use either 0.2% to 0.71% depleted uranium or 0.72% U-235 natural uranium
  • etc.

Or perhaps you actually meant used up. Again used up in what? In reactors the percentage of U-235 used up before the fuel rods are replaced is called burnup; while in fission bombs the percentage of U-235 or Pu-239 used up before the bomb blows itself apart (self dissembles) stopping fission is called efficiency.

  • plutonium production reactors cycle fuel through the core very rapidly to produce as pure Pu-239 as possible without undesired heavier isotopes have very low burnup of well under 1% of the U-235 in the fuel
  • power reactors typically have burnup of about 25% of the U-235 in the fuel although a few designs can achieve 50% burnup
  • nuclear uranium fission gun bombs like the WW2 Littleboy bomb typically have an efficiency of 1% to 2% of the U-235 in the fuel
  • nuclear uranium fission implosion bombs have an efficiency of 10% to 37% of the U-235 in the fuel depending on design (the 1952 Ivy King half megaton test shot was the highest yield & highest efficiency pure fission bomb ever built at 37% efficient)
  • boosted nuclear uranium fission implosion bombs can probably double to triple their efficiency so they probably have an efficiency of 30% to 80% of the U-235 in the fuel depending on design; note all boosted fission bomb designs that I am aware of used plutonium, not uranium
  • etc.

Why government have to continued to develop nuclear weapons?

Governments continue to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent against potential threats from other countries possessing such weapons. Additionally, having a nuclear arsenal can enhance a country's position in global politics and negotiations. However, some countries also justify nuclear weapons development as a means of maintaining national security and protecting their sovereignty.

How explosive is plutonium?

Plutonium is highly explosive when in a critical mass, meaning a sufficient amount is brought together to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. However, in its standard form, such as in nuclear weapons or power plants, plutonium is not explosive on its own and requires specific conditions to detonate.

Is a neutron bomb the most dangerous nuclear weapon?

A neutron bomb is designed to release a large amount of neutron radiation, which can kill living organisms while causing minimal damage to structures. While it is considered highly lethal to humans, there are other nuclear weapons, such as hydrogen bombs, that have far greater destructive power in terms of blast radius and heat.

Do nuclear weapons explode?

Yes, nuclear weapons release energy through a nuclear fission or fusion reaction, causing a powerful explosion. This release of energy is what causes the destructive force associated with nuclear weapons.

Why was the hydrogen bomb created?

The short answer is that the hydrogen bomb -- the fusion bomb -- was the natural extension of the relatively simple fission bombs used over Japan in WWII.

The very creation of the fission "atomic" bomb made possible the pressures and temperatures needed to foster a fusion reaction. Doing so promised to unleash a level of energy and power unheard of even within the circles of Los Alamos.

More to the point, the Soviet Union had been conducting a crash development program to create an atomic bomb after WWII, a program that used the Soviet bomb research, but added to it all the missing pieces supplied to them by agents in the US. Spies like Klaus Fuchs and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg supplied the USSR with the design details for the basic A-bomb.

In 1949, about the same time they figured out how to reverse-engineer a B-29, the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb. Having stolen secrets far beyond the mere "firecracker" of a fission A-bomb, the Soviets immediately embarked on a crash program to develop the same thing the Americans were working on -- the fusion bomb.

The "hydrogen" bomb, or "thermonuclear" bomb, borrows its power and its design from our sun. The star we depend on is powered by a never-ending cycle of nuclear fusion and fission. The "hydrogen" bomb works by using the heat and energy of fission to create fusion, then the heat and energy of fusion to create fission again. It works pretty well; the numbers went from kilotons of TNT to megatons of TNT.

Why was it created? It was the logical extension of the fission bomb. It was the BIGGEST bomb around. It allowed one to place the word "megaton" into one's dictionary.

American megatons and Soviet megatons lubricated the Cold War. For over forty years, East faced West, megatons in holsters at hips, and not one nuclear shot was fired. (The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was ugly, but in the end, it was settled diplomatically.) No shots were fired because everyone was afraid that somebody somewhere might launch a missile or fire a shot that carried a "hydrogen bomb."

How big is a nuclear weapon?

How big do you want it to be?

  • There are 4 inch nuclear howitzer shells
  • The Davy Crocket dial-a-yield tactical jeep transported warhead was a 12 inch sphere
  • Typical modern ICBM fusion warheads are cones about 6 inch diameter base and 18 inch tall (I've seen speculative sketches on these that estimate the fission trigger is roughly a sphere 2.5 inches in diameter)
  • nuclear depth charges are the same size as conventional ones
  • nuclear torpedos are the same size as conventional ones
  • The first US nuclear artillery shell was 280mm (11 inch)
  • The first US deliverable fusion bomb was 6 feet in diameter and about 15 feet long (MK-17) and would only fit in the B-36 bomber
  • The first US fusion device (test Ivy Mike) was a steel cylinder 20 feet in diameter and 80 feet tall with 2 foot thick walls

How is a nuclear explosion started?

A nuclear explosion is initiated by triggering a chain reaction inside a nuclear device, either through implosion or gun-type mechanisms. This chain reaction causes rapid and uncontrolled splitting of atomic nuclei, releasing an immense amount of energy in the form of heat, light, and radiation, resulting in an explosion.