Explain exactly how a hydrogen bomb is supposed to work

[photon]

Could somebody explain exactly how a hydrogen bomb is supposed to work? I have a pretty basic idea, but I need more info.
[?]

 

[LURCH]

The H-Bomb is a fusion device that fuses the nuclei of hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. The most basic bomb design includes a fission bomb which consists of several "lenses" of chemical explosive (lense-shaped to direct the blast) around a core of enriched uranium. The difference is that, at the center of the core of fissionable material, there is a ball (about the size of a grapefruit) of these fusable hydrogen isotopes. Or more accurately, the deuterium is present, mixed with lithium to form a stable metal (called lithium deuterate) that can be stored. Tritium has a very short half-life and is almost impossible to store, but we'll get to the solution for that problem in a moment.

When the device is triggered, the fission bomb works in the normal way. The shaped charges deliver asymmetrical shock wave inward, compressing the fissionable material. At sufficiently high pressures and temperatures, the atoms of U-238 begin to split, releasing x-rays and neutrons. These neutrons collide with other atoms causing them to split, and a chain reaction is sustained.

Now for the part that makes it and H-bomb and not just an A-bomb. The x-rays from the fission reaction heat the lithium deuterate to a high-energy state. Meanwhile, neutrons bombarding the lithium produce the hydrogen isotopes, tritium. When these two things have occurred, the result is deuterium and tritium contained in a small space, and very high temperature, and under extreme pressures. Under these conditions, deuterium fuses to tritium, and also to other deuterium.

 

[photon]

Now I get it.

Thanks LURCH. Having a very limited knowledge and understanding of of how nuclear fusion works, it helped me quite a lot to have that more detailed explanation.

 

[pmb]

The most basic bomb design includes a fission bomb which consists of several "lenses" of chemical explosive (lense-shaped to direct the blast) around a core of enriched uranium.

Correct me if I'm wrong but there is also another design where two subcritical peices are fired together to produce a superctical mass. I.e. one piece is at the end of a tube. The other piece is at the other end. An explosive is detonated behing that pieve and rams it into the other.

Pete

 

[LURCH]

Originally posted by pmb
Correct me if I'm wrong but there is also another design where two subcritical peices are fired together to produce a superctical mass. I.e. one piece is at the end of a tube. The other piece is at the other end. An explosive is detonated behing that pieve and rams it into the other.

Pete

Yes, I think it's usually reffered to as a "plutonium gun" design. But AFAIK, this design is only used for fission bombs, and not fusion. Although I can see where it might work for fusion, if one of the pieces has lithium deuterate in it. I've just never heard of it.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by LURCH
Yes, I think it's usually reffered to as a "plutonium gun" design. But AFAIK, this design is only used for fission bombs, and not fusion. Although I can see where it might work for fusion, if one of the pieces has lithium deuterate in it. I've just never heard of it.

I believe that it was only used for ONE: one of the bombs we dropped on Japan. And I think it was a uranium bomb, not a plutonium one.

 

[NEOclassic]

Just to clarify a little for a child called Photon

Hi photon and string,

While I have no intention of raining on anyone's parade, I believe that my long time forums associate and friend, Lurch, will forgive my constructive (I hope)editing of his earlier post from a participant's viewpoint. Note: emboldenment below indicates "strekethroughs".

The H-Bomb is a fusion device that fuses the nuclei of hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. The most basic bomb design includes a fission bomb, which consists of several "lenses" of chemical explosive (lens-shaped to direct the blast) around a core of enriched uranium (enriched U-235 was the primary fuel of the Hiroshima gun gadget and was wrapped around a reduced radius Pu-239 sphere - “composite core” in two U.S. models, VI and XIII). The difference is that, at the center of the core of fissionable material, (pure Pu-239 of radius 2.242 inches and of mass 13.8 kg = ~30 pounds, and having at its center an 11-mm diameter polonium-beryllium pellet neutron initiator). there is a ball (about the size of a grapefruit) of these (The) fusible hydrogen isotopes (were in a cigar-shaped Helium chilled dewar inclosing a tube of liquid deuterium – the axis of the cigar included the center of the Mark V fission device that was separated from the cigar end by perhaps ten inches and that included a U-238 blast protector.) Or more accurately, the deuterium is present, mixed with lithium to form a stable metal (called (as) lithium deuteride, a white powder,) that can be stored. Tritium has a very short half-life and is almost impossible to store, but we'll get to the solution for that problem in a moment.

[A thirteen-year half-life of tritium has not impeded the DOD from tolerating weapon storage for more than a decade, at which time it can be updated.]

When the device is triggered, the fission bomb works in the normal way. The shaped charges deliver a symmetrical shock wave inward, compressing the fissionable material. At sufficiently high pressures and temperatures, the atoms of U-238 (PU-239) begin to split [from first neutron to bang is about 5 millionths of a second] releasing x-rays and neutrons. These neutrons collide with other atoms causing them to split, and a chain reaction is sustained.]

Now for the part that makes it and H-bomb and not just an A-bomb. The x-rays* from the fission reaction heat the lithium deuterate to a high-energy state. Meanwhile, neutrons bombarding the lithium produce the hydrogen isotopes, tritium. When these two things have occurred, the result is deuterium and tritium contained in a small space, and very high temperature, and under extreme pressures. Under these conditions, deuterium fuses to tritium, and also to other deuterium.
*In the Mike device, there was a channel between the thick U-238 jacket and the cigar dewar cylinder; there was also a tapered liner of the jacket made of polyethylene and lead that converted the radiant gamma wave to a cylindrical implosion that compressed the liquid deuterium – the “stick velocity” of the deuterium burn was perhaps 50+ km/sec compared with 7 or so km/sec for TNT.

[There was no lithium in the Mike device of operation Ivy so I have no details concerning the previous paragraph. I do know that the probability (so-called “cross section”) (n, p) reactions being touted above are not even listed; for the usual Li-7 the c. s. for (n, gamma) is 0.035 barns and the c. s. for Li-6 (n, alpha) is 945 barns. It is notable that the outer U-238 ballistic jackets on earlier US “dry” bombs did result in a tertiary fissioning of those jackets - in the particular unit that resulted in the demise of Japanese fishermen, I recall that about half the 14 megaton yield was due to tertiary fission yield.]

[Although the US “wet” design was conducted to prove the H-bomb efficiency, it was unique and the “dry” design of the USSR’s first H-Bomb became the deliverable weapon type model for both the US and the USSR.
I tried to convince the hierarchy at Los Alamos that, because the inter-atomic spacing of hydrogen atoms in dodecaborane was 1.30 units compared with that in liquid hydrogen of 1.29, that boron hydride might be a better dry salt; my mission was thwarted completely when a grad student (it surely couldn’t have been a professor) at UNM somehow accidentally blew up a chem. lab with only a small amount of the stuff.]

Thanks for your audience, cheers, Jim

 

[pmb]

But AFAIK, this design is only used for fission bombs, and not fusion.

That was what I was referring to.

Thanks

Pete

 

[LURCH]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I believe that it was only used for ONE: one of the bombs we dropped on Japan. And I think it was a uranium bomb, not a plutonium one.

Oh yeah, that's right. "Fat Man" (Hiroshima) was a shaped-charge implosion device, but "Little Boy" (Nagasake) was a Uranium-gun design.

NEO, wow, much better description. More accurate in the details. But, are you saying that the tritium is produced and then stored within the device? I thought the whole reason for mixing the deuterium with lithium was so that tritium would not need to be stored, because it would be produced during the fission stage.

Photon, turns out there's a description at "How Stuff Works" that has an animation. Pretty cool.

 

[hawaiidude]

when you drop the bomb, it explodes and everyone dies

 

[NEOclassic]

More about Tritides

Originally posted by LURCH
Oh yeah, that's right. "Fat Man" (Hiroshima) was a shaped-charge implosion device, but "Little Boy" (Nagasake) was a Uranium-gun design.

Hi again Lurch,
The so-called "Little Boy", as named by the media, was known inside as the "25 Gadget" {element #92 and isotopic mass of U-235; on the inside, "Fat Man" was called: "49 gadget". Because weapon-grade U-235 was slow coming (one per month)and over-fueled by a factor of three (in order to quarantee success without a pre-test),it was essentially on hand before the Nagasaki "Fat Man" design was being tested at Operation Trinity on 7/16/1945.

Continuing posting by LURCH
NEO, wow, much better description. More accurate in the details. But, are you saying that the tritium is produced and then stored within the device? I thought the whole reason for mixing the deuterium with lithium was so that tritium would not need to be stored, because it would be produced during the fission stage.

Tritium is created by cosmic ray type spallation reactions or by impinging fast neutrons on nitrogen N^14(n,T)C^12. DT reactions are the copious source of fusion created 14.5 MeV neutron in a vacuum tube type gadget in which a hot positively charged T-salted "cathode" boils off a beam of tritons that are accelerated at 180 kilovolts into a negatively charged Deuteron salted "plate". Also, not unlike white powder Li-tritide other tritium salting such as Hafnium-DT/DD, Uranium-DT/DD used the fusion aspect to replace the neutron source of stockpiled fission weapons. The little pellet that earlier,pre-1951, was filled with Polonium/Beryllium, was replaced with DD and/or DT salts that were squeezed at pressures in excess of 6 megabars. The upshot of the change was: with the Po-Be iniator, only 6 neutrons were typically avaiable in the 5 microsecond reflected decompression wave window after which criticallity dropped below "one"; the new pellet produced up to 10^10 neutrons during the same window. Thanks for your audience. Cheers, Jim

Photon, turns out there's a description at "How Stuff Works" that has an animation. Pretty cool. [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by LURCH
Oh yeah, that's right. "Fat Man" (Hiroshima) was a shaped-charge implosion device, but "Little Boy" (Nagasake) was a Uranium-gun design.

Uhmm, Lurch, you've got that, the names and the targets, backwards...http://www.atomicmuseum.com/tour/dd2.cfm"

 

[LURCH]

Yeah, I noticed that the next day, but was just too darned lazy to go fix it!

 

[VBPhysics]

That H bomb design is the Russian one. Not that it makes much difference, but I think the American design had a single chem lens.

 

[NEOclassic]

Not so, VBP

Originally posted by VBPhysics
That H bomb design is the Russian one. Not that it makes much difference, but I think the American design had a single chem lens.

Hi VB,
Earlier in this string, I mentioned that a complete 32 Lens Mark V plutonium-239 fueled fission bomb was the source of the radiant gamma wave pressure that was used to compress the cigar shaped liquid deuterium filled "dewar" cylinder in the original American H-Bomb. The Mark V explosive layer, including lenses had an outer diameter of 39 inches (another trial of this model that was abandoned had a diameter of 45 inches) and the Aluminum "pusher" and depleted uranium-238 "tamper" had been thinned out and the standard Trinity Pu core had been levitated on a thin-walled U-238 conic structure. Cheers, Jim

 

[cheeseboi]

This explanation of the way a hydrogen bomb works by LURCH, is it the most current, I mean, do they use any other substances or isotopes for the fusion bomb?

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

if you want a related site, this one had been posted somewheres, but I couldn't find that link, but I found the site again, so's...

http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~dionisio/fun/make-your-own-h-bomb.html"

But be forewarned of these issues cited from that site, herein,

Originally from the www.my.ohio.Voyager[/URL](DOT)net site[/b]
Plutonium is one of the most toxic substances known. If inhaled, a thousandth of a gram can cause massive fibrosis of the lungs, a painful way to go. Even a millionth of a gram in the lungs will cause cancer. If eaten, plutonium is metabolized like calcium. It goes straight to the bones where it gives out alpha particles preventing bone marrow from manufacturing red blood cells. The best way to avoid inhaling plutonium is to hold your breath while handling it. If this is too difficult, wear a mask. To avoid ingesting plutonium orally follow this simple rule: never make an A-bomb on an empty stomach.[/quote]

Followed by this 'lovely' (Sarcasm) piece of advice...
[quote][b]Originally from the [PLAIN]www.my.ohio.Voyager[/URL](DOT)net site[/b]
Step 2: Assembling the A-Bomb
Now that you've acquired the enriched uranium, all that's left is to assemble your A-bomb. Go find a couple of stainless steel salad bowls. You also want to separate your 10 pounds of U-235 into two hunks. (Keep them apart!) The idea is to push each half your uranium into the inside of a bowl.
[b]Take one hunk of your uranium and beat it into the inside of the first bowl[/b]. Uranium is malleable, like gold, so you should have no trouble hammering it into the bowl to get a good fit. Take another five-pound hunk of uranium and fit it into a second stainless steel bowl. These two bowls of U-235 are the "subcritical masses" which, when brought together forcefully, will provide the critical mass that makes your A-bomb go. Keep them a respectful distance apart while working because you don't want them to "go critical" on you... At least not yet.[/quote]
It should be clearly noted (by anyone with a brain) that the manner of getting U[sup]235[/sup] to generate 'neutron expulsions' is by COMPRESSION!

Hammering a metal is a form of "attempted compression", hence you could easliy arrive at the idea that pounding away at your malleable u[sup]235[/sup] is likely to generate "neutronal emissions", the radioactivity, (hence DOSE) that that is.

Please DON'T try this at home, or anywheres else for that matter!

 

[GRQC]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I believe that it was only used for ONE: one of the bombs we dropped on Japan. And I think it was a uranium bomb, not a plutonium one.

The gun design only works for uranium, not plutonium. This is why it's so "easy" to make a nuclear bomb with U235. Uranium (gun) bombs are less efficient in their fission process than the focused implosion bombs which use plutonium. The latter tends to give higher blast yields.

As mentioned, the "Little boy" bomb dropped on HIroshima was a gun trigger at about 12-15 kt. Nagasaki was a plutonium device, estimated to be in the 20-22 kt range.

 

[dodger]

So far (i think) that no one has mentioned the use of Beryllium in nuclear device. It is placed between the nuclear material and the explosives to increase the efficeincy of the explosion by reflecting neutrons back into the active area. With this, instead of 11Kg Pu only 4Kg would be needed (with an explosion equivalent o Nagasaki). The most crazy thing of this is that 4Kg of Pu is about the size of an orange and can destry so much.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by dodger
So far (i think) that no one has mentioned the use of Beryllium in nuclear device. It is placed between the nuclear material and the explosives to increase the efficeincy of the explosion by reflecting neutrons back into the active area. With this, instead of 11Kg Pu only 4Kg would be needed (with an explosion equivalent o Nagasaki). The most crazy thing of this is that 4Kg of Pu is about the size of an orange and can destry so much.

Uhmm sure 'bout that?? Beryllium is used (AFAIK) because it is a hard/strong enough metal to be able to withstand the explosion that propels the "soon to be fissioned" material together, nothing to do with that actual explosion from fission or fusion.

That is the reason why it is on a list of "Internationally restricted trade" items...

But you are right, takes very little to disrupt alot, just like in class, in school, one person can ruin the entire classes experiences...

 

[NEOclassic]

About Beryllium!

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Uhmm sure 'bout that?? Beryllium is used (AFAIK) because it is a hard/strong enough metal to be able to withstand the explosion that propels the "soon to be fissioned" material together, nothing to do with that actual explosion from fission or fusion.

Hi Mr. Parsons,
The reason why Beryllium (like most very lo-Z materials) was not considered in the design of the Trinity Bomb was because of its acoustic impedence - its density is 1.85 and its minimum sound/shock velocity exceeds 15 km/second. Very careful design of the intermediate materials that couple the explosive to the plutonium requires that Aluminum (so-called 4.5" thick pusher) between the Comp B and the U-238 "tamper" (both inertial and neutron moderating) was intermediate acoustically; on the other hand, with Be, it's like hitting the tamper with a gavel and besides rapid shocks and rarefactions would also cause hellatious spalling. There is no doubt that Be is a super excellent moderating material: Recall that Dr. Louis Slotin was fatally neutron radiated on May 21,1946 when he accidentally dropped the upper Be hemisphere on a Pu Trinity core nested in a ~2+ inch thick Be shell which was the reactivity equivalent of the entire 5-foot-diameter field package, (the Be control-rods had been inserted too deeply prior to the experiment.)
Another excellent moderator was the Hydrogen of the "Dragon" pulsed "Pile" - enriched U235 mixed in a polythene matrix could be made critical at a concentration of one U235 atom per 80 hydrogen atoms.
Thanks for your audience, Cheers.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Thanks NEOclassic, as I am certain you can understand they never mentioned 'all of that' in the report (on CBS's 60 Minutes) that I had watched, that had talked about the "resticrtive trade in Be" and the reasons "why"...so...

Sad that we still have stockpiles of things we no longer need...No-Nuke'm All!...useless for anything other then Mass Destruction of Humans (and other animals)

 

[pallidin]

I am sure that it can be safely assumed that no sensitive information, direct or implied, is being or will be conveyed on this thread.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by pallidin
I am sure that it can be safely assumed that no sensitive information, direct or implied, is being or will be conveyed on this thread.

Not to the best of my knowledge, or by my "hand" ('typing fingers' actually) either...but that link I had, above, is pretty detailed...I suppose

 

[yales]

While seaching the web on another topic, I came across this thread.
With ever increasing surprise, I read the responses by "NEOclassic".

The "facts" he is presenting are anything but. DO NOT accept the technical information he is posting.

yale