4 ms·
From my recollection, even in a fusion bomb, most of the energy comes from the fission. I don't fully remember/understand the physics involved. But apparently t
by thmsths 3y ago
From my recollection, even in a fusion bomb, most of the energy comes from the fission. I don't fully remember/understand the physics involved. But apparently the fission reaction triggers the fusion reaction (that part I get) and then that fusion reaction in turns boosts the fission reaction.
So my takeaway is that fission bombs are not very efficient to begin with. You're after all trying to extract as much energy as possible as quickly as possible from a system that is literally self destructing. We do not have that constraint with current fission plants, the plant is designed to run in a steady state for years, the fissile materials stay in place and my intuition is that this significantly helps efficiency.
- apendleton 3y agoYes, the gist is that in a fusion device, you've got a chain reaction where the splitting uranium or plutonium is making neutrons, and those neutrons strike other uranium or plutonium, which makes more neutrons, etc. But you have a very short period of time to take advantage of this chain reaction, because before long, your device has blown apart, so a large percentage of the fuel in a conventional fission device never undergoes fission (the device has blown up before it has a chance). The job of the fusion reaction in a fission-fusion-fission device (how "modern" thermonuclear weapons work) is, in addition to producing energy of its own, to rapidly produce lots of lots of neutrons, which can very quickly fission a second quantity of fissile material.