i heard once that it was pretty much impossible to accidentally set off a nuclear device by hitting it with projectiles or explosives. however as i understand it most implosion-type nuclear weapons are set off by conventional explosives compressing the core. wouldn't bullets or and external explosion set these explosives off?
Breaking nukes
Robert Morgan
Brody White
Blake Taylor
The implosion has to be carefully controlled, or it will just be a dirty bomb instead of a nuke. If the compression is even slightly asymmetric you'll just disperse the radioactive fuel instead of compressing it.
That's why they did the Trinity test. The warhead dropped on Hiroshima was actually untested, since a gun-type bomb is simple enough that it's quite unlikely to fail, but they weren't confident that Fat Man would work, to the point that they were willing to sacrifice fissile material on a test detonation even though they only had enough at the time for three bombs.
Brandon Butler
There are two types of nuclear weapons that have been successfully detonated: the shell type and the bullet type. (there are other names for both)
The shell type is a layered sphere (think jawbreaker) and the outer most shell is a series of shaped charges that have to be set off simultaneously.
Get it wrong at all and no big boom.
The bullet type sends a small amount of one type of radio active material smashing into a carefully shaped chuck of another type of radio active material.
This has to be done very carefully as well.
too slow and no boom, not precise enough hit, and no boom, or go to fast and the bullet deforms and the hit won't be right and no boom.
What is really weird is I learned all this from a kids book I got in the library 25 years ago.
Joshua Bennett
to give you a real answer because i'm bored, yes they're detonated by conventional explosives, but the way the bomb works is that it requires all of them to be detonated extremely, extremely preciously, like within
Hunter Myers
If the detonation is not symmetric the resulting wave will scatter the material in the core rather than compress it.
It is absolutely possible to accidentally set off gun-type bombs by dropping them or striking on end with sufficient force. Gun-type bombs can only work with U-235, are pretty inefficient, and are difficult to integrate into a fusion device as a primary. They were only used experimentally and produced in very limited numbers in the 40s and early 50s before being totally discontinued.
There was a proposed Thin Man gun-type bomb that would have used plutonium but the casing would have been too long for any production aircraft to safely carry internally.
Eli Powell
lol yeah that's why they didn't test the bullet type 238 bomb.
Jackson Morris
No, the reason they didn't test a bullet type 238 bomb is because a bullet type 238 bomb wouldn't work at all.
It was a U-235 bomb that didn't need to be tested due to its simplicity, and had Hiroshima as its first detonation.
Jonathan Hall
this was a thing.
Blake Gonzalez
It "was a thing" in the sense that that was a design under consideration. It was not "a thing" in the sense of something that was feasible or ever actually constructed, as is stated there.
Jacob Davis
it was feasible but was dropped due to length
its issue was that the block would need to be accelerated to something like 3000 ft/s, which required a 'barrel' so long to the point that it was impractical to carry via aircraft
it would've worked
Michael Stewart
This.
Jose Barnes
No. The explosives used in implosion-type weapons are extremely stable and require an electrical impulse to detonate. There are two explosives used in implosion-type devices, a fast detonating explosive and a secondary slower explosive (these make up the explosive lens) designed to provide additional pressure on the tamper. The common mistake is a misunderstanding in the function of the explosives; they're purpose is to simultaneously detonate causing the pusher and tamper to super-form around the core and compress it, at the center of the core is a neutron initiator the compression causes the neutron initiator to produce neutrons, which bring the core to near criticality, as neutrons are released, they're reflected back into the core by the tamper, intensifying the reaction, bring it to criticality. If the tamper is made of fissile material, like U-238 it will transmute to U-235 from the in increased in neutron bombardment by the criticality of the core, causing an increase in weapon yeild.
Over time small improvements have been made to the implosion design, but it reached the apex of it's design capabilities, which is why we now have staged devices.
Jaxson Miller
The only reason why cuckchan Zig Forums is better than cripplechan Zig Forums?
No Oppenheimer to shut stupid threads down and educate people.
Blake Phillips
Yes but the explosion wouldn't be symmetric, and there wouldn't be any compression. All you'd get is a dirty bomb.
Leo Butler
It would but there would be proper symmetrical implosion. Nuclear material woudl be just scattered around.
Though
en.wikipedia.org
can be very susceptible to such.
There are rumors that 155mm nuclear rounds are variation of gun scheme because this is only one that fits in such size and are very accident prone.
Isaac Jackson
There is reverse gun scheme. Neutrons absorber is moved out from the core by explosion. It works with plutonium and its is minimal possible caliber nuke.
Wyatt Edwards
C4 is so chemically stable it can be hit with hammers, shot, and set on fire without exploding. The purpose of military explosives isn't to go boom, it's to not go boom until you want them to.
Jackson Baker
Which third world tinpot will get nukes next?
Zachary Scott
Iran.
Zachary Myers
That doesn't sound like a very good idea.
Jace Myers
even you would find oppenheimer's character isn't infallible strelok
Caleb Young
They aren't, it's an evolution of the swan device. The material is alloy of plutonium and gallium and formed into a sphere, which is layered with styrofoam and beryllium as a neutron deflector. The alloy is not supercritical because it isn't dense enough, but an egg shaped explosive lens presses on it, seals the beryllium shell and brings the core over the hill into criticality.
Jack Wood
Also that's not even the most modern tech.
Jeremiah Russell
There is no enough palce for implosive scheme in 155 mm caliber.
Ryan White
It's not a standard implosive scheme with 3x the volume of explosives vs core. The explosive layer is very thin, outer layer is less than 0.5cm, then an air lens, then inner layer about 1.5cm. It's super easy to bring a gapu alloy to criticality. In fact it's SO EASY that dropping this core type into the ocean would cause criticality as pressure increased, and they were actually considered as depth charges.