It was not until early 1951 that a series of conceptual breakthroughs madeīy Stanislaw Ulam and Edward Teller discovered a way of creating the Was shown to be impossible under the conditions then deemed to be In fact theīetter part of a decade (until mid 1950) was spent refining calculations toĬonclusively determine its feasibility one way or the other. In deuterium at achievable densities was marginal at best. Preliminary investigation made the idea seem promising, but more detailedĪnalysis soon showed that the feasibility of a self-sustaining D+D reaction An additional possibility was that such weapons mightīe much lighter than other designs of comparable yield. If the D-D reactionĬould be initiated then explosions of practically unlimited power could beĬreated inexpensively. Naturally available and comparatively cheap material. Igniting self-supporting thermonuclear combustion in pure deuterium, a Years before the first fission weapon test), the possibility was noticed of In the summer of 1942, quite early in the development of nuclear weapons (3 Piecemeal, within a framework which gives the reader a sense of the Has the advantage of allowing the introduction of important design ideas Introduce the physics and design of these weapons by discussing theĮvolution of thermonuclear weapon design concepts, instead of plungingĭirectly in to a description of modern hydrogen bomb design principles. The design and functioning of these weapons is complex, I have decided to Requires duplicating production over 12.33/ln 2 years).Ĥ.4.1 Development of Thermonuclear Weapon Concepts The half-life is 12.33 years but continuously replacing decayed tritium Investment in tritium production every 17.8 years (sic, this is not a typo, Maintaining a given tritium inventory means duplicating the initial ![]() Immediately (which fortunately, has been the case since 1945), then If the weapon is intended to be kept in stockpile rather than used Second, and more important, is the natural decay of First, there is the added complexity compared to a For at most a modest energy gain, this design would haveĬonsiderable penalties. ![]() Would still not be dramatically greater than breeding fissile materialĭirectly. Were used efficiently in causing U-238 fast fission (requiring a massiveįusion tamper as in the Alarm Clock/Layer Cake design), the energy gain Much energy available for a nuclear explosion. A neutron expended in breeding Pu-239 or U-233 would make ten times as That tritium must be made through neutron reactions (or other even moreĮxpensive charged particle reactions) makes its cost prohibitively high for ![]() In principle large fusion explosions could beĬreated using this reaction, if sufficient tritium were available. In the previous subsection (4.3) I discussed weapon designs that employ theĮasy-to-ignite D-T reaction. The only authorized host site for the NWFAQ in English is the Nuclear Weapon Archive (">) Unauthorized host sites are expressly forbidden. Only authorized host sites may make this document publicly available on the Internet through the World Wide Web, anonymous FTP, or This material may be excerpted, quoted, or distributed freely provided that attribution to the author (Carey Sublette), theĭocument name (Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions) and this copyright notice is clearly preserved, and the URL of this website is included: 4.4 Elements of Thermonuclear Weapon Design
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