Putting the CLEAR in Nuclear: How Nuclear Weapons Work
In July 1961, a bomb formally known as RDS-220 made a massive 58-megaton explosion off Northern Russia, producing an artificial earthquake scaling 5.5 on the Richter Scale and shock waves that circled the entire earth twice, shattering windows as far as Scandinavia. A brainchild of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s thirst for a show of power, Tsar Bomba made the most powerful man-made explosion to date.
And to think all that took was by splitting one atom.
At present time, tensions are heating up as President Donald Trump threatens to meet the equal threat of North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un with “fire and fury.” Though outlawed by most international treaties, nuclear weapons still present a danger on lives and properties, as it did before during the Cold War between Khrushchev and Kennedy. Most people know that nuclear weapons kill with immense force, but basically, how does it actually work?
Most weapons tend to use nuclear fission as a matter of creating energy. Nuclear fission involves blasting free neutrons into the nuclei of certain elements to separate it; thus, releasing energy in the form of radiation. The split nuclei then releases the once bound subatomic particles within it to create a chain reaction. Think of it like a magnet, when you pull two magnets attracted to each other, there seems to be an opposing force. The magnets represent the particles; while the force is the energy created. Another good example would be a marble as a neutron and once it hits a system of marbles, they create a chain once they hit each other.
As to what elements may be used for nuclear fission, it was physicist Enrico Fermi who discovered that the isotope Uranium-235 was most optimal back in 1941. One of the few substances that could undergo induced fission, the nucleus of U-235 easily accepts the bombarded neutrons, therefore creating an imbalance within it. In the same year, scientists from the University of Berkeley in California discovered that another element, Plutonium, could also be used as an alternative source of fuel.
There are two ways on how chain reactions could be induced within bombs: the gun method and the implosion method. The former requires a small pellet of U-235 that will be fired at a certain altitude by explosives within the bomb towards a sphere of U-235 and a neutron generator. The neutron generator is responsible for the release of neutrons when triggered. An example of a bomb that used this method was Little Boy, the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima that ceased the chaos of the Second World War.
The implosion method works at a more complicated level: explosives send shockwaves to a core of radioactive material, compressing the core and starting a fission reaction within instead of relying on an outside source for neutrons. The second bomb to hit Japan, Fat Man, used this method, yielding more kilotons of TNT compared to its little predecessor in Hiroshima.
As time progressed, a more powerful method emerged: combining two isotopes together to release energy. This process was called nuclear fusion. In this method, the isotopes of hydrogen, namely deuterium (H-2) and tritium (H-3) were used. Lithium deuterate was used as the means to create a stable compound for storage of the fuel.
For thermonuclear bombs to work, it requires a smaller fission bomb to detonate inside. The detonation of this bomb causes the tamper, also made of a radioactive material, to expand and compress the lithium deuterate in turn. Additional fission in plutonium fission rods allow for free neutrons to combine with the lithium deuterate and create tritium. Finally, the massive chain reaction results to the fusion of tritium with deuterium or deuterium with another deuterium. Though more complicated, all of the reactions happen amazingly within 600 billionths of a second. This reactions made the Tsar Bomba explosion a reality, releasing energy 1400 times the energy released by Little Boy and Fat Man combined. Fortunately, hydrogen bombs are too bulky and impractical to be used in warfare.
So the next time you hear nuclear weapons in the news, think of the destruction a few little subatomic marbles could make.
SOURCES: howstuffworks.com, cnduk.org, gizmodo.com
Writer: Khrushchev Magcaling, Layout Artist: Michael Ambion
