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RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/4/2007 5:29:36 PM

beeble

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quote:

joanus wrote: Lithium is only used to gernerate the heat needed to cause a nuclear reaction

No. A chain fission reaction (as used in the `atom-bomb', with uranium or plutonium) starts spontaneously in any dense-enough, large-enough lump of fissile material -- known as a `critical mass'. Early bombs achieved this by bringing two smaller pieces of material together to form a single larger piece. Modern bombs do it by using conventional explosives to compress a smaller piece of fissile material so that it becomes dense enough to sustain a fission reaction. There is no lithium in an atom bomb.

Fusion reactions (as used in the `hydrogen-bomb') require extremely high temperatures to cause hydrogen atoms to fuse together to form helium, releasing vast amounts of energy. These high temperatures are generated by an atom bomb. Using liquid hydrogen is a pain because you need massive cryogenic systems so, instead, the hydrogen is present in the form of lithium deuteride. The two advantages of this are that, firstly, it's a solid at room temperature so it's easy to handle and, secondly, the lithium itself undergoes nuclear reactions that produce more hydrogen to further fuel the bomb.

So, yes, lithium is used in nuclear weapons but not `to generate heat'.

[Edited to fix broken grammar.]

< Message edited by beeble -- 12/4/2007 5:30:28 PM >

(in reply to joanus)

Post #: 21

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/4/2007 5:40:53 PM

Muttling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: joanus

quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne

lithium makes wonderful nukes.

Lithium is only used to gernerate the heat needed to cause a nuclear reaction, not in the nuclear material it's self. (watched the Military Channel last night) Kinda hard to imagine why we give this stuff to crazy people to ingest.

Any who this still sounds to me like another plot to invoke a completely unneeded War with Iran. Will the US ever learn?

Actually it's quite a bit more complicated than that.   Lithium is totally useless in an "a-bomb" or a fission bomb which is the simplest of nuclear devices to construct.

Fusion weapons (a.k.a. "h-bombs" or "thermonuclear devices") release a massive burst of nuetrons and x-rays upon detonation. If you have a highly advance weapons design knowledge, you can construct a device that will bombard deutrium and tritium with x-rays causing them to release a massive amount of nuetrons. This massively increases the explosive yield of a fussion weapon, but you have to get it just right or it does absolutely nothing for you.

The design of such a weapon is so complicated that it's impossible to achieve without test detonations of fusion weapons or computer models which have been calibrated based on test detonations.   (If you want evidence of that last part, ask yourself why the French did their last nuclear weapons test in the mid-1990's despite world wide disdain for it. They gave an official answer and it was for "computer calibration".)

< Message edited by Muttling -- 12/4/2007 5:50:51 PM >

(in reply to joanus)

Post #: 22

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/4/2007 5:41:04 PM

Sinergy

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Stephann

The Microwave oven, transistor, cake mix, and credit card were all invented after the atomic bomb.

Look at it this way, once the United States gets Iran to lay down the nuclear weapons they dont have, AnencephalyBoy will invade under the pretext that they were preparing to use their credit cards to purchase Microwave Ovens, Transistors, and Cake Mixes.

The United States people are so screwed.

Sinergy

_____________________________

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"Every so often you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You cant do that, it is gone, gone forever." J. Danforth Quayle

(in reply to Stephann)

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RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/4/2007 5:46:55 PM

Muttling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: beeble

quote:

joanus wrote: Lithium is only used to gernerate the heat needed to cause a nuclear reaction

No. A chain fission reaction (as used in the `atom-bomb', with uranium or plutonium) starts spontaneously in any dense-enough, large-enough lump of fissile material -- known as a `critical mass'. Early bombs achieved this by bringing two smaller pieces of material together to form a single larger piece. Modern bombs do it by using conventional explosives to compress a smaller piece of fissile material so that it becomes dense enough to sustain a fission reaction. There is no lithium in an atom bomb.

Fusion reactions (as used in the `hydrogen-bomb') require extremely high temperatures to cause hydrogen atoms to fuse together to form helium, releasing vast amounts of energy. These high temperatures are generated by an atom bomb. Using liquid hydrogen is a pain because you need massive cryogenic systems so, instead, the hydrogen is present in the form of lithium deuteride. The two advantages of this are that, firstly, it's a solid at room temperature so it's easy to handle and, secondly, the lithium itself undergoes nuclear reactions that produce more hydrogen to further fuel the bomb.

So, yes, lithium is used in nuclear weapons but not `to generate heat'.

[Edited to fix broken grammar.]

Pretty dang close and starting to get beyond my level of knowledge.

That said, the weapons DO use tritium (e.g. radioactive hydrogen) as a "sweetner" so to speak. This is the biggest factor in the shelf life of thermonuclear devices as tritium has a half life of 7 years and the tritium gas (not liquid) has to recharged on a periodic basis or the weapon will not achieve it's appropriate potential.

There are further details that are not classified (and I'm not privy to the classified details), but I am hesitant to discuss them as I have not seen them describe in open discussions.

(in reply to beeble)

Post #: 24

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 8:42:25 AM

farglebargle

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"That said, the weapons DO use tritium (e.g. radioactive hydrogen) as a "sweetner" so to speak. This is the biggest factor in the shelf life of thermonuclear devices as tritium has a half life of 7 years and the tritium gas (not liquid) has to recharged on a periodic basis or the weapon will not achieve it's appropriate potential."

Funny how GE figured out how to keep the repeat business going like that...

_____________________________

It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

(in reply to Muttling)

Post #: 25

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 2:00:51 PM

beeble

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quote:

Muttling wrote:Pretty dang close and starting to get beyond my level of knowledge.

Thanks. All I know in this area comes from easily-accessible public sources such as Wikipedia and physics not far beyond high school.

quote:

That said, the weapons DO use tritium (e.g. radioactive hydrogen) as a "sweetner" so to speak.

I thought that was only to boost fission weapons? (A little gaseous tritium, even a few grams, in the middle of a fission weapon will fuse early in the detonation and produce a burst of fast neutrons which leads to a much greater proportion of the fissile material reacting before the bomb blows itself apart.)

(in reply to Muttling)

Post #: 26

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 2:52:31 PM

Muttling

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Nope. It's a major component of fusion weapons, especially the weapons with adjustable yields. The key to a fusion design is managing your nuetron production. Not only the quantity of nuetrons but the energy level of the nuetrons as well. This is what makes production of effective fusion weapons impossible without test detonations. Adding to the complication is the fact that the tritium and deuterium decay so freaking fast. You have to design a weapon that accounts for that decay over the designed shelf life. Finally, you have to include a nuetron absorber that will keep the weapon stable during storage and safe to handle, but not interfere with the detonation or make the weapon ridiculously heavy.

Most of more modern weapons are a fusion primary with a fision/fusion secondary. (The Russians even built one with a fision tertiary. It had a yield of 60 megatons and was the largest weapon ever constructed.) If you build your secondary correctly, it can also function as your nuetron absorber but I am hesitant to describe the details of how and why that works.

In the dial a yield designs, you can alter the percentage of the yield that comes from fision or fusion. At maximum yield, it's almost entirely fusion. At minimum yield, the secondary is almost entirely fision.

< Message edited by Muttling -- 12/5/2007 2:54:35 PM >

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RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 4:37:45 PM

beeble

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quote:

Muttling wrote: Most of more modern weapons are a fusion primary with a fision/fusion secondary. (The Russians even built one with a fision tertiary. It had a yield of 60 megatons and was the largest weapon ever constructed.)

I think you have that the wrong way round. The primary is a fission device (plutonium; possibly fusion-boosted), which provides the energy to detonate the secondary fusion stage (heavy hydrogen in some form). The secondary may have a uranium tamper which will undergo a fission reaction enabled by the neutrons released from the fusion reaction. That is known as a fusion-fission stage and the resulting bomb is a fission-fusion-fission bomb.

The Tsar Bomba, the Soviet bomb to which you refer, had a tertiary stage, which was a second fusion stage -- it was a fission-fusion-fusion bomb. It was fitted with non-fissile tampers in the fusion stages, presumably because fissile tampers dramatically increase the fall-out from the bomb and the increased yield (estimated at around 100Mt with fissile tampers) would kill the bomber crew that dropped it. (The bomb weighed over 25t so it could only be dropped by a modified bomber.)

(in reply to Muttling)

Post #: 28

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 4:48:25 PM

beeble

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quote:

[Muttling wrote: Nope. It's a major component of fusion weapons, especially the weapons with adjustable yields.

Wikipedia suggests that the dial-a-yield weapons are fusion-boosted fission bombs. That is, they're atom bombs which have a small (and variable) amount of tritium injected into the core prior to detonation. The detonation compresses and heats the tritium, which undergoes fusion, emitting neutrons that cause more of the fissile material to fission than would happen with just the neutrons released by the fission chain-reaction.

(in reply to Muttling)

Post #: 29

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 5:19:21 PM

Muttling

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The design yield was 100 megaton, but the actual yield was around 60 megatons. The Russian test program was notorious for failing to achieve design yields while our program was just the opposite and we frequently underestimated the weapon yields. In some of our early testing, we BADLY underestimated the weapon yields and had quite a bit of our observation equipment get destroyed.

Here's a pretty good discussioni on Tsar:
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html

I did a little digging and I was incorrect about the use of boosters in fissile weapons. You are correct in that tritium and dueterium can be used to sweeten a fissile weapon as well. You are also correct in that I had it fusion/fision backwards on the primary/ secondaries.

Here's a couple of web sites that will probably interest you. (The second one is really good.)

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/design.htm

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html

Last but not least, I can't resist but bring up my favoriate weapon of ALL time: the Davy Crocket. Here's a link, but I'm not sure how accurate it is as I haven't read it in detail. The pictures alone are well worth viewing.

http://www.guntruck.com/DavyCrockett.html

This weapon was designed in a light and a heavy version. The only difference was the diameter of the recoiless rifle that fired the warhead and the distance it could throw the warhead. This weapon was man portable and the complete system could be carried in by a 3 team. The warhead itself, weighed about 70 lbs.

Like ALL mini-nukes, it had a few problems. Specifically, the radius for a lethal dose of radiation was larger than the explosive radius. Thus, you would wind up with a large number of enemy troops who had recieved a lethal dose of radiation and knew they were dying but weren't going to be dead for another 1 to 2 weeks. Thus, you would be facing the ultimate in suicide troops. They're already dead and they know it. They and their commanders wouldn't be too cautious in how they put them to use on the battlefield.

The other BIG problem was that the light version of the weapon couldn't throw it far enough to get the rifle team out of the radius for lethal radiation exposure. This was truely a shoot and DUCK weapon.

On a final note, the Davy Crocket was retired in the late 1980's and all the warheads were disassembled in the 1990's. We no longer have any warheads or atomic demolition charges that are man portable.

(in reply to beeble)

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RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 5:25:10 PM

Muttling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: beeble

quote:

[Muttling wrote: Nope. It's a major component of fusion weapons, especially the weapons with adjustable yields.

Wikipedia suggests that the dial-a-yield weapons are fusion-boosted fission bombs. That is, they're atom bombs which have a small (and variable) amount of tritium injected into the core prior to detonation. The detonation compresses and heats the tritium, which undergoes fusion, emitting neutrons that cause more of the fissile material to fission than would happen with just the neutrons released by the fission chain-reaction.

The details on dial a yield are complex and beyond my knowledge. Their design is also one of our most gaurded secrets (right up there with miniturization technology) and there's a lot of misinformation about them.

Finally, I'm not right all the time and I know bits n pieces of nuclear weapon design. It's also been a long time since I have boned up on that subject so I wouldn't rely on my memory. That said, Wikipedia is a hit n miss place for accuracy. There's a number of more reliable sources of information on the web such as Janes.com, FAS.org, and a number of U.S. government maintained sights.

(in reply to beeble)

Post #: 31

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/5/2007 10:23:28 PM

farglebargle

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The USA can save a lot of money by investing in "Stealth Nuke" technology.

In this strategy, you just TELL PEOPLE you have them. Since no-one is really going to USE a nuke, then your bluff isn't ever going to be found out.

But then GE, Westinghouse, etc. wouldn't have those nice profit centers...

_____________________________

It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

(in reply to Muttling)

Post #: 32

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/6/2007 1:56:28 AM

Muttling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: farglebargle

The USA can save a lot of money by investing in "Stealth Nuke" technology.

In this strategy, you just TELL PEOPLE you have them. Since no-one is really going to USE a nuke, then your bluff isn't ever going to be found out.

But then GE, Westinghouse, etc. wouldn't have those nice profit centers...

There is no such thing as "stealth" nuclear weapon under the SALT I and SALT II treaties.   We and the Russians agreed to open our door to inspection.   They know exactly how much we have, what we are capable of producing, and what our raw material stock pile consists of.   We know the same about them.   What's more, the information is publicly available to anyone who can read the U.N. reports and accurately understand them.

What's more there is a HUGE carrot for countries who are willing to prove that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons. Many countries take advantage of this by signing the nuclear weapons ban treaty and getting all kinds of non-weapons related nuclear technology. It's a great program.   Countries like South Africa can give up their weapons and get massive benefits for doing so while we can easily be assured that other countries aren't even pursuing them.

That leaves us with the likes of Iran, North Korea, and Israel. How do we deal with them??????   Everyone has resigned themselves to ignoring Israel. It pisses off many other countries, but whatever. North Korea is an impossible hand to play but they are slowly starting to turn.   Iran is holding several aces in their hand but much of the world is worried about them too........the next president will play a critical role in world history.

Lastly, you have Venezuala. They're not a nuclear power but they are definitely looking to manipulate the world stage against America.

What a tangled web we weave.

(in reply to farglebargle)

Post #: 33

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/6/2007 7:24:32 AM

farglebargle

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quote:

There is no such thing as "stealth" nuclear weapon under the SALT I and SALT II treaties.

What's the US's historical stats for adhering to treaties? It's not like the US couldn't just withdraw from it.

_____________________________

It's not every generation that gets to watch a civilization fall. Looks like we're in for a hell of a show.

ברוך אתה, אדוני אלוקינו, ריבון העולמים, מי יוצר צמחים ריחניים

(in reply to Muttling)

Post #: 34

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/6/2007 3:26:39 PM

beeble

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farglebargle wrote: What's the US's historical stats for adhering to treaties? It's not like the US couldn't just withdraw from it.

The current missile defence plans effectively do just that.

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Post #: 35

RE: Iran nuclear arms work ended in 2003 - 12/7/2007 1:20:23 AM

Muttling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: beeble

quote:

farglebargle wrote: What's the US's historical stats for adhering to treaties? It's not like the US couldn't just withdraw from it.

The current missile defence plans effectively do just that.

Plans differ from actual systems. The Treaties do not regulate planning, only deployment of actual systems and we are currently negotiating with the Russians to find ways to deploy our plans without violating the treaties.

That said......Can anyone tell me the year in which the first weapon system with anti-ballistic missile capabilities went on line? Bonus points if you can name the system.

A note for the wise.....This topic entire story line is more about politics than technology.

(in reply to beeble)

Post #: 36

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