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reddit_lies Reddit/Lies yes it's really me  1mo ago (web.mit.edu) 140 thread views #305950

An Investigation of the World's Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design

https://web.mit.edu/zoz/Public/jcws_a_01011.pdf 

								

								

									
									
!ifrickinglovescience


									
								

							

							

								
									
								
							

							

								
	

							

						

						
						

							

								
							

						

					

					
						

							
							
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Very interesting, thank you.
Context and tl;dr: the conventional Teller-Ulam thermonuclear weapon design actually produces most of its energy from fission, the first (fission) stage compresses the second (fusion) stage against a uranium tamper which starts fusion, produces a ton of neutrons, and fissions the tamper. You can use a lead tamper instead for a "clean" variant with a significantly reduced yield, for example the Tsar Bomba was exploded "clean" for 50Mt, the yield was expected to be 120-150Mt when used in the standard fission-fusion-fission configuration.
So, in 1955 then 24-year-old John H. Nuckolls started working on an alternative design, initially for peaceful energy generation by exploding a bomb once a week in a huge cavern filled with water, then using the steam for power generation. Conventional design was a no go, so he started thinking about an alternative codenamed Ripple, where a very small fission primer (several kiloton) was used to produce a pulse of xrays, which was carefully modulated and directed through a complicated maze of different materials to a thin shell of deuterium-tritium, which compressed it and initiated fusion, so the yield was 99.9% fusion.
That went by and large nowhere, but in the early sixties when tensions with Soviets mounted and they restarted atmospheric nuclear tests and scared everyone shitless by demonstrating a technological advantage, someone asked Nuckolls if he could develop an actual bomb using his principle. And literally within a year he made and successfully exploded a 3Mt prototype, the next one fizzled, the next achieved the planned 10Mt.
Then a treaty banning atmospheric tests was signed, with that the public/political interest in clean designs waned, and the whole thing was apparently shelved. Also, while much lighter than the conventional design it was actually larger and did not fit into most ICBMs. Also they only ever airdropped it and never got to figuring how this complicated construction was going to survive accelerations involved in ICBM delivery. So there it went.

						


						
							

							

								
									
								
							


							

								
	

							


							

								

									

										
										

									


								
						

					
				


				

				
					
	

	
		

			
		


		

			

				
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I don't have enough spoons to read this shit

						


						
							

							

								
									
								
							


							

								
	

							


							

								

									

										
										

									


								
						

					
				


				

				
					
	

	
		

			
		


		

			

				
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I'm phoneposting right now so I didn't read the report, but I understand the mechanism.
A question on your context paragraph: Are you describing a two-stage design (a fission primary device igniting the fusion secondary device) or are you describing a "boosted fission" one-stage device, aka fission-fusion-fission singular device?
I ask because (1) the primary fission device can use depleted Uranium-238 as its temper to allow more time for the reaction to continue, and (2) whether you choose to boost or not boost the fission charge, you'll get between 15-30 kT yield. Anything past this is going to be from the fusion charge.
Regardless, the X-rays emitted from the fission primary (boosted or unboosted) travel across the weapon and start to melt the casing around the fusion material and start that process.
This is what the National Ignition Facility at Livermore simulates without the fission charge -- they skip to X-rays and shoot it at tritium.
!commenters

						


						
							

							

								
									
								
							


							

								
	

							


							

								

									

										
										

									


								
						

					
				


				

				
					
	

	
		

			
		


		

			

				
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A question on your context paragraph: Are you describing a two-stage design (a fission primary device igniting the fusion secondary device) or are you describing a "boosted fission" one-stage device, aka fission-fusion-fission singular device?
I didn't know that "fission-fusion-fission" was a specific term for single stage booster fusion bombs. I was referring to the former, it is my understanding that in most designs the majority of the energy comes from the fission of the tamper. From the linked document:
On 30 August 1961, in the midst of the Berlin crisis, Nikita Khrushchev announced the Soviet Union's withdrawal from the nuclear test moratorium. Two days later, the Soviet Union resumed atmospheric testing. Two months later, on 30 October 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the largest nuclear device ever built, the RDS-220 "Tsar Bomba." With a yield of approximately 57 megatons and a fission fraction of only 3 percent, this device revealed a mastery of both high-yield and "clean" weapon design. (The Soviet Union's largest test prior to the new series had been three megatons.) The result of a crash program, the device was overbuilt and relatively pedestrian from a technological standpoint, using a lead tamper for the second and possibly third stages (similar to Livermore's B-41). Nevertheless, at full "dirty" yield (120 to 150 megatons), the approximately 50,000-pound device would have hit the 6 kt/kg "Taylor Limit" that had hitherto been approached only by the B-41.
Another interesting point:
We know that all (four) Ripple devices tested used the advanced Kinglet primary. The use of the Kinglet is particularly intriguing because of how new the design was at the time and, more important, because of its very small yield in relation to the yield of the Ripple secondary: no more than 10 to 15 kilotons and, based on data from the Dominic Tanana shot, as little as 2.6 kilotons (this for a secondary with yield greater than 10 megatons). For comparison, the conventionally designed 9-megaton W-53 required a 100-kiloton primary plus a fissile tamper and sparkplug in the secondary.

						


						
							

							

								
									
								
							


							

								
	

							


							

								

									

										
										

									


								
						

					
				


				

				
					
	

	
		

			
		


		

			

				
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