3 ms·
Sorry, this wouldn't work at all. I don't have time and desire to verify their neutrino beam / neutron shower calculation, but they want to detonate bombs by ra
by atemerev 6y ago
Sorry, this wouldn't work at all. I don't have time and desire to verify their neutrino beam / neutron shower calculation, but they want to detonate bombs by raising the core temperature to 300C, assumed ignition temperature of surrounding explosives.
This doesn't work, because: 1) you cannot detonate explosives there by simple ignition, 2) you need a very precise timing for simultaneous activation of all detonators, to achieve the smooth shockwave front, and 3) even if all this somehow happened, you just can't explode the bomb just lying around AT ALL, as it is not in pre-critical configuration yet. There are many things that need to happen simultaneously, in exact order and with nanosecond precision. There are PAL devices that provide encrypted timing differences to the detonation controller by loading external codes — without these codes, it is physically impossible to achieve nuclear explosion, even if you somehow activated all other things from pre-detonation checklist. Etc etc.
Not to mention that in the real bomb, there is much less plutonium than 10 kg they have mentioned.
I assume the rest of the paper is of similar quality.
- CapitalistCartr 6y agoThe paper seems to be talking about merely destroying bombs, rather than getting a nuclear yield.
- atemerev 6y agoThey assume 3% fizzle yield. It wouldn't work anyway (there will be exactly zero yield), the core will remain intact, ready for insertion into another physics package.
- maxander 6y agoI don’t know the details of how durable a uranium warhead core is (and I suspect it’s very highly classified) but they’re pretty precisely machined bits of metal. Even a 3%-yield fizzle should be more than enough to de-rate one. At that point the uranium could be recycled to build a new core, but that’s about it.
- atemerev 6y agoI know some details. (It is plutonium, not uranium). Any yield, even fizzle yield, is impossible by simply igniting the explosives around the core. Again, it is not in pre-critical configuration yet at this point. Arming the device, i.e. assembling the initial configuration, is an incredibly complicated and precise process. It is so beautiful from the engineering point of view.
- aerostable_slug 6y agoYou don't seem to get it. The object of the exercise is not nuclear yield. BTW, you can physically damage fissile material that needs to be in a particular physical configuration with neutrons and/or x-rays. One is not trying to detonate the weapon, but rather render it in a state where it cannot reach the desired yield (preferably none at all, of course).
- yborg 6y agoYou are suggesting that just simple combustion of the HE lenses surrounding the core won't damage it at all? Even if the explosive just burns it would melt the physics package, there won't be any reinserting it anywhere. You could recover the fissile material I suppose.