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Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types:
Operation Castle was a United States series of high-yield (high-energy) nuclear tests by Joint Task Force 7 (JTF-7) at Bikini Atoll beginning in March 1954. It followed Operation Upshot–Knothole and preceded Operation Teapot.
Operation Upshot–Knothole was a series of eleven nuclear test shots conducted in 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. It followed Operation Ivy and preceded Operation Castle.
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of Operation Castle. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful nuclear device detonated by the United States and the first lithium deuteride-fueled thermonuclear weapon ever tested using the Teller-Ulam design. Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatonnes of TNT (63 PJ), 2.5 times the predicted 6 megatonnes of TNT (25 PJ), due to unforeseen additional reactions involving lithium-7, which led to radioactive contamination in the surrounding area.
The B-41 was a thermonuclear weapon deployed by the United States Strategic Air Command in the early 1960s. It was the most powerful nuclear bomb ever developed by the United States, with a maximum yield of 25 megatons of TNT. A top secret document, states “The US has stockpiled bombs of 9 MT and 23 MT...” which would likely be referring to the B-41's actual yield(s). The B-41 was the only three-stage thermonuclear weapon fielded by the U.S.
RDS-37 was the Soviet Union's first two-stage hydrogen bomb, first tested on 22 November 1955. The weapon had a nominal yield of approximately 3 megatons. It was scaled down to 1.6 megatons for the live test.
Chagan (Чага́н) was a Soviet underground nuclear test conducted at the Semipalatinsk Test Site on January 15, 1965.
Castle Romeo was the code name given to one of the tests in the Operation Castle series of U.S. nuclear tests. It was the first test of the TX-17 thermonuclear weapon, the first deployed thermonuclear bomb.
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits. Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile depleted uranium as the weapon's main fuel, thus allowing more efficient use of scarce fissile material such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239. The first full-scale thermonuclear test was carried out by the United States in 1952; the concept has since been employed by most of the world's nuclear powers in the design of their weapons.
This article chronicles the history and origins of the Teller–Ulam design, the technical concept behind modern thermonuclear weapons, also known as hydrogen bombs. The design – the details of which are military secrets known to only a handful of major nations – is believed to be used in virtually all modern nuclear weapons that make up the arsenals of the major nuclear powers.
The W38 was an American thermonuclear warhead used in the early to mid-1960s as a warhead for Atlas E and F, and LGM-25 Titan I ICBMs. It was first built in 1961 and was in service from 1961 to 1965. 70 were deployed on Titan I missiles and 110 on Atlas missiles. It used the Avco Mark 4 reentry vehicle.
Violet Club was a nuclear weapon deployed by the United Kingdom during the Cold War. It was Britain's first operational "high-yield" weapon and was intended to provide an emergency capability until a thermonuclear weapon could be developed from the 1956–1958 Operation Grapple tests. Violet Club was ultimately replaced in service by the Red Snow warhead, derived from the US W28 warhead.
RACER IV was a component of some of the first hydrogen bombs made by the United States during the 1950s. The RACER was developed in 1953 at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Mark 22 nuclear bomb (Mk-22) was the first thermonuclear device test by the University of California Radiation Lab (UCRL). The test was part of the Koon shot of Operation Castle. The Mk-22 failed to achieve anything like its intended yield due to premature heating of the secondary from exposure to neutrons. As the other UCRL test planned for the Castle series, the liquid-fueled "Ramrod" device had the same basic design flaw, that test was canceled. Within a month of the bomb's failure, the Mk-22 was terminated because the United States Atomic Energy Commission realized there was nothing that could be done to salvage the design.
Test No. 6 is the codename for China's first test of a three-staged thermonuclear device and, also its sixth nuclear weapons test. It was a part of the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" program.
The uranium hydride bomb was a variant design of the atomic bomb first suggested by Robert Oppenheimer in 1939 and advocated and tested by Edward Teller. It used deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, as a neutron moderator in a uranium-deuterium ceramic compact. Unlike all other fission-based weapon types, the concept relies on a chain reaction of slow nuclear fission. Bomb efficiency was adversely affected by the cooling of neutrons since the latter delays the reaction, as delineated by Rob Serber in his 1992 extension of the original Los Alamos Primer.
The Mk 36 was a heavy high-yield nuclear bomb designed in the 1950s. It was a thermonuclear, using a multi-stage fusion secondary system to generate yields up to about 10 megatons TNT equivalent.
A fizzle occurs when the detonation of a device for creating a nuclear explosion grossly fails to meet its expected yield. The bombs still detonate, but the detonation is much less than anticipated. The cause(s) for the failure can be linked to improper design, poor construction, or lack of expertise. All countries that have had a nuclear weapons testing program have experienced some fizzles. A fizzle can spread radioactive material throughout the surrounding area, involve a partial fission reaction of the fissile material, or both. For practical purposes, a fizzle can still have considerable explosive yield when compared to conventional weapons.
Swan was a United States test nuclear explosive, which was developed into the XW-45 warhead.
References
- Hansen, Chuck, "The Swords of Armageddon: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Development since 1945" (CD-ROM). PDF, 2,600 pages, Sunnyvale, CA, Chukelea Publications, 1995, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9791915-0-3 (2nd Ed.)
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