4 ms·
I 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 meta
by maxander 6y ago
I 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).