Thermonuclear or Fusion Bomb

Thallous Azidodithiocarbonate A637-L Thallous-Thallic Azide A623-R Thermonuclear or Fusion Bomb. See under Atomic Bomb A499-L Thorium Dicarbide A82-R Tin Azide A624-L Titanium Carbide A82-R Titanous Chloride Method for Determination of Nitrobenzene in Aniline A415-R TNT Recovery from Scrap Amatol A161-L Toluidine. See under Aminotoluenes A265-R... 

After nearly three decades of effort, fusion ignition, that is. the efficient bumup of deuterium and tritium has been accomplished only in one way, namely, the thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb. In this instance, obviously... 

In a thermonuclear or hydrogen bomb, a significant fraction of the energy release occurs by nuclear fusion rather than nuclear fission. The hydrogen isotopes, 2H (deuterium, D) and 3H (tritium, T), can be made to fuse, as ... 

Such high temperatures have been achieved by using an atomic bomb to initiate fusion. This is the operating principle behind a thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb. This approach is obviously unacceptable, however, for a power generation plant. ... 

Atomic (or Nuclear) Bomb. A weapon invented during WWII and developed in the United States as a joint effort with the British and Canadian governments. It utilizes for its destructive effect the energy of an Atomic or Nuclear Explosion (qv). Since atomic explosions are of two types, fission and fusion, atomic bombs are of. corresponding types. However, it has been necessary to first initiate an atomic explosion with a nuclear fission reaction in order to bring about the conditions under which a nuclear fusion(thermonuclear) reaction can occur. 

Thus a Fusion Bomb, (Hydrogen or H Bomb, a Thermonuclear Bomb) must contain meun of initiating both types of atomic explosion The three bombs exploded during WWII — in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945, over Hiroshima on Aug 6, 1945, and over Nagasaki on Aug 9, 1945 — were all of the fission type and of tens of kiloton(thousands... 

To understand this new development we must examine the mechanism of the so-called thermonuclear reaction of the hydrogen bomb which had already been successfully demonstrated by American scientists in 1952. Soon after the A-bomb, loaded with uranium-235 and plutonium, had been exploded for the first time in history in the summer of 1945, our scientists went to work on another type, the hydrogen or H-bomb. The principle of this weapon is somewhat different from that of the A-bomb. The destructive force of the H-bomb comes from the fusion of fighter atoms into a heavier one, rather than from the fission of a heavier element into lighter elements. 

Fusion reactions are accompanied by even greater energy production per unit mass of reacting atoms than are fission reactions. They can be initiated only by extremely high temperatures, however. The fusion of H and occurs at the lowest temperature of any fusion reaction known, but even this is 40,000,000 K Such temperatures exist in the sun and other stars, but they are nearly impossible to achieve and contain on earth. Thermonuclear bombs (called fusion bombs or hydrogen bombs) of incredible energy have been detonated in tests but, thankfully, never in war. In them the necessary activation energy is supplied by the explosion of a fission bomb. 

There is no critical mass in a fusion bomb, and the force of the explosion is limited only by the quantity of reactants present. Thermonuclear bombs are described as being cleaner than atomic bombs because the only radioactive isotopes they produce are tritium, which is a weak /S-particle emitter (ti = 12.5 yr), and the products of the fission starter. Their damaging effects on the environment can be aggravated, however, by incorporating in the construction some nonfissionable material such as cobalt. Upon bombardment by neutrons, cobalt-59 is converted to cobalt-60, which is a very strong 7-ray emitter with a half-life of 5.2 yr. The presence of radioactive cobalt isotopes in the debris or fallout from a thermonuclear explosion would be fatal to those who survived the initial blast. 

Nuclear fusion became important on Farth with the development of hydrogen bombs. A core of uranium or plutonium is used to initiate a fission reaction that raises the core s temperature to approximately 10 K, sufficient to cause fusion reactions between deuterium and tritium. In fusion bombs, LiD is used as Li reacts with fission neutrons to form tritium that then undergoes fusion with deuterium. It is estimated that approximately half the energy of a 50 megaton thermonuclear weapon comes from fusion and the other half from fission. Fusion reactions in these weapons also produce secondary fission since the high energy neutrons released in the fusion reactions make them very efficient in causing the fission of... 

NUCLEAR WEAPON. An explosive device that uses radioactive materials as the primary fuel for the explosion. This fuel undergoes either a fission or fusion reaction, resulting in the release of an enormous amount of energy. A weapon using a fusion reaction is more commonly called a thermonuclear homh or sometimes a hydrogen bomb. At least nine countries are known or believed to possess nuclear weapons China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. South Africa is believed to have had nuclear weapons but to have destroyed them prior to its transition from an apartheid regime. 

Helium is also the result of fusion reactions wherein the nuclei of heavy hydrogen are fused to form atoms of hehum. The result is the release of great amounts of energy. Fusion is the physical or nuclear reaction (not chemical reaction) that takes place in the sun and in thermonuclear weapons (e.g., the hydrogen bomb). 

The first Fusion Type Atomic Bomb (also known as Hydrogen Bomb, H—Bomb or Thermonuclear Bomb) was tested at Eniwetock and proved to be successful. The bomb was of several megatons (millions of tons of TNT equivalent) (Vol 1 of Encycl, p A499-L R)... 

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