Nuclear weapons

April 21, 2022

What are these Nuclear weapons?

War is a conflict between two or more political groups, countries, governments, societies, or states. There are so many historical stories about wars all around the world to the present day. Recently Russia – the Ukraine war has become the trending topic above.

Along with the development of countries, militaryhaser also has become the main component of deciding the power of a country. Nowadays mainly nuclear power is the main.

A lot of countries are testing so many different kinds of nuclear weapons; North Korea is an example. In the recent ongoing war Russia- Ukraine war (started on 22^nd February 2022), people are mostly talking about the nuclear power that Russia has got and would they use its nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

A nuclear weapon can destroy a wide range of areas in several seconds. It explores and derives its destructive force from either nuclear fission or fusion.

Nuclear fission happens by compressing nuclear materials and releasing X- rays that create high temperature and pressure. These temperatures and pressure are produced by heavy atoms splitting into smaller, lighter nuclei, releasing excess energy in the process. In nuclear fusion when high temperature and pressure are supplied lightweight nuclei fuse and form heavier metal by releasing energy.

Modern nuclear weapons, use both nuclear fission and fusion that can release huge explosive energy in a second.

“Little boy” is the first nuclear weapon ever used in history and it is made up of a hollow uranium-235 cylinder.

Image: Little Boy: A Gun-Type Bomb 3D cut-away (https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/fission/little-boy.html)

Nuclear fission

Nuclear fission bombs are mainly referred to as atomic bombs. Certain isotopes in certain elements can undergo fission and split into lighter atoms. Plutonium-239 and uranium-235 are the most common isotopes used in nuclear weapons.

Image: nuclear fission

(https://world101.cfr.org/global-era-issues/nuclear-proliferation/how-do-countries-create-nuclear-weapons )

In nuclear fission bombarded neutrons give enough energy to collide with fissionable nuclei and produce additional free neutrons. Some neutrons are captured by non-fissionable nuclei and some are escaped without being captured. Neutrons are emitted by fissioning nuclei, collide with another nucleus, and continue fissioning. It is called a chain reaction.

The system is said to be critical when the number of fission in one gen is equal to several neutrons in the preceding generation. Each piece is not enough to the mass which is the minimum mass required to maintain fission (critical mass) so colliding of neutrons can activate the fission of nuclei.

In modern guns instead of colliding sub-essential pieces of nuclear fuel, contemporary guns detonate chemical explosives around a sub-crucial sphere (or “pit”) of uranium-235 or plutonium-239 metal. The pressure from the blast is directed inward, compressing the pit and bringing its atoms nearer together. As soon as dense enough to attain the critical mass, neutrons are injected, initiating a fission chain reaction and producing an atomic explosion.

Nuclear fusion

At extremely high temperatures fusion of two nuclei may happen and form new heavier atoms and release considerably high energy. This may happen near the range of ten million degrees of temperature, in the same range as the center of the sun and the kinetic energy of the atoms may high.

The nuclei of an isotope of a hydrogen atom can combine to form a heavier atom and due to high kinetic energy, they will overcome the long-range electrostatic repulsive force between atoms, attracting and fusing the nuclei called thermonuclear.

Image: nuclear fusion

(https://byjus.com/physics/nuclear-fusion-reactor/)

Isotopes of hydrogen-deuterium and tritium may fuse and by releasing the energy it may produce helium and a neutron.

Thermonuclear warhead

In thermonuclear weapons, there are two-stage of designs, primary the chemical and fission explosion and secondary a physically separate component, the subsequent fusion blast.