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Hole wrote:And where does the energy to start the fusion comes from? Thin air?
Laser or explosive primary
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Russian Nuclear Weapons Industry
Austin- Posts : 7617
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Laser or explosive primary
Hole- Posts : 11109
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Normal explosives are not strong enough to start a fusion.
Have you seen the lasers that are used in experimental work for possible fusion reactors? They are massive! Gigantic! Plus their energy needs. I guess the current H-bombs are the best we can get for a few decades to come.
Have you seen the lasers that are used in experimental work for possible fusion reactors? They are massive! Gigantic! Plus their energy needs. I guess the current H-bombs are the best we can get for a few decades to come.
GarryB- Posts : 40489
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Normal explosives can thrust together two pieces of heavy material like Uranium 235 or Plutonium, which creates a runaway fission reaction and a nuclear explosion.
The problem is that a fusion reaction requires lots of energy to force light atoms to smash together and fuse together... the easiest way to get that to happen is a fission explosion to trigger it by generating a temperature of a few million degrees C.
Cold or room temperature fusion is being sought, but current fusion experiments tend to use as much energy to start as they generate and don't work for very long anyway.
In terms of enormous power weapons in small packages... well they would need to find new material combinations... most nuclear weapons over the power of 1-5 megatons are fusion weapons... you would have trouble making a fission bomb that big because the amount of material that needs to be slammed together in an instant to form a big enough mass to get to that power but each piece of material must be below the weight were it would reach critical mass on its own...
It is a bit like asking why they can't put the equivalent of an aircraft delivered bomb (200-500kgs) of HE power in a hand grenade... another point is... if they could... would you carry any with you around the place?
The problem is that a fusion reaction requires lots of energy to force light atoms to smash together and fuse together... the easiest way to get that to happen is a fission explosion to trigger it by generating a temperature of a few million degrees C.
Cold or room temperature fusion is being sought, but current fusion experiments tend to use as much energy to start as they generate and don't work for very long anyway.
In terms of enormous power weapons in small packages... well they would need to find new material combinations... most nuclear weapons over the power of 1-5 megatons are fusion weapons... you would have trouble making a fission bomb that big because the amount of material that needs to be slammed together in an instant to form a big enough mass to get to that power but each piece of material must be below the weight were it would reach critical mass on its own...
It is a bit like asking why they can't put the equivalent of an aircraft delivered bomb (200-500kgs) of HE power in a hand grenade... another point is... if they could... would you carry any with you around the place?
Austin- Posts : 7617
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I think once they figure out how they can initiate a fusion with the minimim possible energy and with achieving 100 % of Fusion burn the weapons since will drastically fall.
The current limitation seems to be the primary fission which need X amount of Pu or Uranium to generate Y amount of energy to start fusion on Z amount of FUsion material to generate a certain percentage of burn
I have yet to see any official number on Russian Nuclear Weapons that describe the Yeald , Size and Weight which would give a good idea on how far they have progressed on yield to mass ratio in Hydrogen Bomb
The current limitation seems to be the primary fission which need X amount of Pu or Uranium to generate Y amount of energy to start fusion on Z amount of FUsion material to generate a certain percentage of burn
I have yet to see any official number on Russian Nuclear Weapons that describe the Yeald , Size and Weight which would give a good idea on how far they have progressed on yield to mass ratio in Hydrogen Bomb
GarryB- Posts : 40489
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In terms of nuclear fusion the process generates enormous amounts of energy... at the moment they are having problems getting it stable and continuous... they are no where near any efficient way of drawing electrical energy from it AFAIK... the sun up in the sky shows a fusion reaction can be self sustaining and continue for billions of years with the right conditions and materials, but recreating those conditions on earth are problematic to say the least.
The simple fact is that in a star like our sun 2-3 million degrees C is plenty for a stable and continuous fusion reaction with hydrogen, but on earth we need temperatures that are much higher because the hydrogen inside the suns core is not just 2-3 million degrees C it is also under the pressure of trillions of tons of material sitting directly on top of it... so on earth we need more like 20 million degrees C for fusion reactions in labs.
The problems are very complex and are not going to be solved any time soon but new things are being learned all the time and new ideas and technologies created.
The simple fact is that in a star like our sun 2-3 million degrees C is plenty for a stable and continuous fusion reaction with hydrogen, but on earth we need temperatures that are much higher because the hydrogen inside the suns core is not just 2-3 million degrees C it is also under the pressure of trillions of tons of material sitting directly on top of it... so on earth we need more like 20 million degrees C for fusion reactions in labs.
The problems are very complex and are not going to be solved any time soon but new things are being learned all the time and new ideas and technologies created.
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GarryB wrote:
It is a bit like asking why they can't put the equivalent of an aircraft delivered bomb (200-500kgs) of HE power in a hand grenade... another point is... if they could... would you carry any with you around the place?
No it is most certainly not if your target is on another continent you may aswell use a multi gigaton or even teraton warhead.
Austin- Posts : 7617
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Autonomy, Machine Learning and Nukes. Russian perspective
https://twitter.com/KomissarWhipla/status/1103737941749317632
https://twitter.com/KomissarWhipla/status/1103737941749317632
owais.usmani- Posts : 1824
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Rosatom releases several documentaries (with never before seen footage 
) to celebrate 75 years of atomic industry. These include:
1) Test of a pure hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 million tons:
2) Chronicle of the first test of RDS-1:
3) Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes:
) to celebrate 75 years of atomic industry. These include:1) Test of a pure hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 million tons:
2) Chronicle of the first test of RDS-1:
3) Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes:
GarryB, magnumcromagnon, Big_Gazza and LMFS like this post
Arrow- Posts : 3440
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- Post n°134
There are indications that Russia is working on a nuclear scramjet?
Arrow Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:23 am
There are indications that Russia is working on a nuclear scramjet?
owais.usmani- Posts : 1824
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Arrow wrote:There are indications that Russia is working on a nuclear scramjet?
link? source?
The-thing-next-door- Posts : 1389
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owais.usmani wrote:Arrow wrote:There are indications that Russia is working on a nuclear scramjet?
link? source?
They would obviously be working on such things, there is no need for evidence.
GarryB wrote:The Americans developed a mach 3 cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that was supposed to fly at low level
They never got around to actually developing the missile, the government pussied shortly after they had built a proof of concept engine.
There was never even a single test flight with a nuclear ramjet of any sort.
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I don't know how feasible this actually is. I'm more inclined to think a larger anti-material rifle (14.5x114mm and upwards) would be more likely to work but nothing below it. Even if they managed to get it to work, would it not be just like another Davie Crocket where the blast radius was greater than the range? What about the high cost per mg of fissile material? The proper handling of it? Seems impractical and the definition of high risk low reward.
Interesting article from Armeiski Sbornik about the "nuclear bullet" - miniaturization of the nuclear projectiles in a form of infantry weapons caliber size rounds.
https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1355557332873342981
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GarryB- Posts : 40489
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There are indications that Russia is working on a nuclear scramjet?
The difference between a scramjet and a ramjet is that the conventional fuel in a ramjet is burned subsonically... like in turbofan and turbojet and turboprop jet engines.
The scramjet is designed so the airflow does not need to slow down to burn the fuel and therefore is a supersonic combustion ramjet.
In the case of a nuclear powered jet scramjet is meaningless because there is no combustion... a nuclear ramjet by definition is not speed limited so the fuel can be burned subsonically.
I don't know how feasible this actually is. I'm more inclined to think a larger anti-material rifle (14.5x114mm and upwards) would be more likely to work but nothing below it. Even if they managed to get it to work, would it not be just like another Davie Crocket where the blast radius was greater than the range? What about the high cost per mg of fissile material? The proper handling of it? Seems impractical and the definition of high risk low reward.
You could already fake this by having a battery of 152mm artillery vehicles 10km away with your soldier equipped with a laser target marker.
Obviously not as rapid firing and responsive as a nuclear bullet gun, but also not so much of a problem if you get hit and your ammo mag gets destroyed.
I remember in the 1980s there were gamebooks called fighting fantasy gamebooks, and I think book number 12 was called Space Assassin. One of the weapon options was a gravity bomb which was a hand grenade that had a microscopic black hole in a stasis field. Essentially to use it you threw the bomb and it landed and after a second or to and black sphere formed around the bomb that was several metres across... everything inside the sphere disappeared and was sucked out of this universe, but the microscopic black hole then vapourised and disappeared itself. No explosion or blast wave... just a sphere around the bomb blinking out of existence... handy for getting through doors etc.[/quote]
limb- Posts : 1550
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I read that this was basically a fake historical article, due to the fact that californium is far too expensive, unstable and lacking the critical mass to cuase a nuclear explosion in bullet form.magnumcromagnon wrote:I don't know how feasible this actually is. I'm more inclined to think a larger anti-material rifle (14.5x114mm and upwards) would be more likely to work but nothing below it. Even if they managed to get it to work, would it not be just like another Davie Crocket where the blast radius was greater than the range? What about the high cost per mg of fissile material? The proper handling of it? Seems impractical and the definition of high risk low reward.
Interesting article from Armeiski Sbornik about the "nuclear bullet" - miniaturization of the nuclear projectiles in a form of infantry weapons caliber size rounds.
https://twitter.com/MihajlovicMike/status/1355557332873342981