supersheep 0 Posted February 21, 2003 isn't that how thermonuclear weapons work, all the neutrons super-heat the material that is to be... fusioned, i supposed you could call it. the thing about the iron and uranium and stuff being fusioned, they require more energy to be fusioned than they give out, so they mightn't get fusioned (yes it's not a real word but i like it and i'm gonna continue to use it). maybe the neutrons could cause fission in the uranium, but there will never be as many neutrons as if the bomb exploded (don't nukes have lead shields that would stop radiation getting in as well as they stop it getting out?) so it wouldn't be very expolsive. admittedly, i'm only going by my small knowledge of things nuclear, so i may be wrong. any nuclear physicists, please feel free to correct me Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted February 21, 2003 </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (supersheep @ Feb. 21 2003,21:32)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">isn't that how thermonuclear weapons work, all the neutrons super-heat the material that is to be... fusioned, i supposed you could call it. the thing about the iron and uranium and stuff being fusioned, they require more energy to be fusioned than they give out, so they mightn't get fusioned (yes it's not a real word but i like it and i'm gonna continue to use it). maybe the neutrons could cause fission in the uranium, but there will never be as many neutrons as if the bomb exploded (don't nukes have lead shields that would stop radiation getting in as well as they stop it getting out?) so it wouldn't be very expolsive. admittedly, i'm only going by my small knowledge of things nuclear, so i may be wrong. any nuclear physicists, please feel free to correct me<span id='postcolor'> Not quite. Thermonuclear weapons are another name for hydrogen bombs or fusion devices. First off a brief of how normal nuclear weapons (atomic fission devices) work: An unstable radioactive material requires a certain mass (critical mass) to generate a cascade reaction. That reaction is the breakdown of the original substance to a lower isotope. During that transition energy is released and a lot of neutrons. The neutrons then collide with other nuclei forcing the atoms to break down to a lower isotope. That's fission. The big blast comes from the released energy. The technical principle behind it is quite simple. You have two half spheres of fissile material. Together they equal the critical mass. Before detonation they are separated with a moderator (no not that kind of moderator - nuclear moderator - i.e water ). At detonation TNT devices are used to join the two parts together. Once the critical mass is achieved the nuclear reaction starts. Hydrogen bombs work on the reverse principle - fusion. When you extremely heat hydrogen molecules they combine and fuse into helium. The surplus bonding energy is released and it is several order of magnitude larger then the energy required to fuse the atoms. The only thing that can heat the hydrogen atoms enough to start the fusion process is a nuclear explosion. So hydrogen bombs have a nuclear detonator. Technically you have a tank of hydrogen with a fission device mounted on it. When you detonate the nuke the fusion process starts. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Othin 0 Posted February 21, 2003 I think this was probably just speculation. I seem to remember something being mentioned about this a few months back too. There are far more negatives to such a device then just putting the money into better conventional warheads. Not only from a weapon handeling standpoint (the military would have to invest millions in adding new saftey devices to ships, bases, airplanes, etc,) as well as the long term cost of increased security (I highly doubt you would treat one of these the same as you treat a JDAM). Plus what about cost? Is it really cost effective to spend all the money on producing one nuclear weapon, when for the same cost you could product hundreds of cruise missiles? I could be way off target there though... O.T. here, would a smaller yield weapon like this still have an E.M.P. effect? If so how big would it be? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
