Hydrogen bomb vs fission bomb9/11/2023 ![]() ![]() The distance separating the two assemblies ensures that debris fragments from the fission primary (which move much more slowly than X-ray photons) cannot disassemble the secondary before the fusion explosion runs to completion. These X-rays flood the void (the "radiation channel" often filled with polystyrene foam) between the primary and secondary assemblies placed within an enclosure called a radiation case, which confines the X-ray energy and resists its outward pressure. Its temperature soars past approximately 100 million kelvin, causing it to glow intensely with thermal X-rays. Ī fusion explosion begins with the detonation of the fission primary stage. For this reason, thermonuclear weapons are often colloquially called hydrogen bombs or H-bombs. ) and a separate nuclear fusion secondary stage containing thermonuclear fuel: the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, or in modern weapons lithium deuteride. Modern fusion weapons consist essentially of two main components: a nuclear fission primary stage (fueled by 235 The first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952 the concept has since been employed by most of the world's nuclear powers in the design of their weapons. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material such as uranium-235 ( 235 Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Radiation case (confines thermal X-rays by reflection)Ī thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb ( H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design.Radiation channel filled with polystyrene foam.Tritium "boost" gas (blue) within plutonium or uranium hollow core.Uranium-238 ("tamper") lined with beryllium reflector. ![]() In a speech of March 1954, Georgii Malenkov, chairman of the Council of Ministers, referred to the danger of “a new world war, which with modern weapons means the end of world civilization.” Raising this specter went beyond what Khrushchev and other party leaders were willing to acknowledge publicly, and even though he subsequently reverted to the standard line that nuclear aggression by the United States would lead to the “collapse of the capitalist social system,” Malenkov could not undo the damage to his own political career. However, there was political fallout from the hydrogen bomb. In October 1953 Sakharov was elected to full membership of the Academy of Sciences at the age of thirty-two, and he, Kurchatov, and several other physicists were made Heroes of Socialist Labor. Before Stalin’s death in March 1953, there had been three nuclear tests between August 1953 and the end of 1955 there were sixteen including three thermonuclear explosions. This type of “deliverable” weapon was replicated by Soviet physicists and first tested on November 22, 1955.Ī by-product of the Cold War, the Soviet nuclear arms program was given the highest priority by Stalin and was continued apace by his successors. In the spring of 1954, the United States tested its own two-stage super-bomb in the Pacific. Unlike the first Soviet atomic bomb the development of which was hastened by espionage in the United States, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was of an original design. The design for the bomb was based on the “layer cake” concept developed by the physicist Andrei Sakharov (1921-89), according to which alternate layers of thermonuclear material and uranium-238 were placed in a fission bomb. It was headed by Igor Kurchatov (1903-60), a physicist who had been appointed scientific director of the Soviet Union’s nuclear project in 1943. The project was organized by the First Chief Directorate under Lavrentii Beria, Minister of State Security (MGB). Work on the super-bomb had begun in 1946, three years before the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. On Augthe Soviet Union detonated a thermonuclear (“hydrogen”) bomb at the Semipalatinsk test site in northern Kazakhstan. Images Visual Essays Music Other Resources ![]()
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