|
Mark 24 Nuclear Bomb
The Mark 24 nuclear bomb was an American thermonuclear bomb design, based on the third American thermonuclear bomb test, Castle Yankee. The Mark 24 bomb was tied as the largest weight and size nuclear bomb ever deployed by the United States, with the same size and weight as the Mark 17 nuclear bomb which used a very similar design concept but unenriched Lithium. The Castle Yankee thermonuclear test was the first bomb to use enriched Lithium-6 isotope, up to perhaps 40% enrichment (the earlier Castle Bravo test had used the same enriched lithium combination but was not weaponised i.e. was not built as a deployable bomb). The device tested was called the Runt II design; it was reportedly very similar to the Runt design tested in Castle Romeo, other than the enrichment level. Castle Yankee had a demonstrated yield of 13.5 megatons. The yield for the weaponized Mark 24 was predicted to be 10–15 megatons. The EC24 bomb was a limited production run of the Castle Yankee test device ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermonuclear Bomb
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H 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. Modern fusion weapons consist essentially of two main components: a nuclear fission primary stage (fueled by or ) and a separate nuclear fusion secondary stage containing thermonuclear fuel: the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, or in modern weapons lithium deuteride. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle Yankee
Castle Yankee was the code name given to one of the tests in the Operation Castle series of American tests of thermonuclear bombs. It was originally intended as a test of a TX-16/EC-16 ''Jughead'' bomb, but the design became obsolete after the Castle Bravo test was successful. The test device was replaced with a TX-24/EC-24 ''Runt II'' bomb which was detonated on May 5, 1954, at Bikini Atoll. It released energy equivalent to 13.5 megatons of TNT, the second-largest yield ever in a U.S. fusion weapon test. Jughead Yankee was originally intended to be a test of a TX-16/EC-16, a weaponized version of the large and complex Ivy Mike device. A small number of emergency capability EC-16s were produced, without being tested, to provide a stop-gap thermonuclear weapon capability in response to the Russian nuclear weapons program. The test device, code-named ''Jughead'', had been prepared as a backup in case the non-cryogenic Castle Bravo ''Shrimp'' device failed to work. The test of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark 17 Nuclear Bomb
The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were the first mass-produced hydrogen bombs deployed by the United States. The two differed in their "primary" stages. They entered service in 1954, and were phased out by 1957. Design and development Design and development originated when Los Alamos National Laboratory proposed that a bomb design using lithium deuteride with non-enriched lithium was possible. The new design was designated TX-17 on February 24, 1953. The TX-17 and 24 were tested as the "Runt" ( Castle Romeo shot) device during Operation Castle in 1954. After the successful tests, basic versions of the Mk 17 and 24 were deployed as part of the "Emergency Capability" program. The MK 17/24 bombs were long, diameter. They weighed 21 tons. The Mark 17 had a yield of .Gibson 1996, p.92. 200 Mk 17s and 105 Mk 24s were produced, all between October 1954 and November 1955. The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were identical in all respects save for the design of their primary section. They were the largest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isotopes Of Lithium
Naturally occurring lithium (3Li) is composed of two stable isotopes, lithium-6 and lithium-7, with the latter being far more abundant on Earth. Both of the natural isotopes have an unexpectedly low nuclear binding energy per nucleon ( for lithium-6 and for lithium-7) when compared with the adjacent lighter and heavier elements, helium ( for helium-4) and beryllium ( for beryllium-9). The longest-lived radioisotope of lithium is lithium-8, which has a half-life of just . Lithium-9 has a half-life of , and lithium-11 has a half-life of . All of the remaining isotopes of lithium have half-lives that are shorter than 10 nanoseconds. The shortest-lived known isotope of lithium is lithium-4, which decays by proton emission with a half-life of about (), although the half-life of lithium-3 is yet to be determined, and is likely to be much shorter, like helium-2 (diproton) which undergoes proton emission within s. Lithium-7 and lithium-6 are two of the primordial nuclides that were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle Bravo
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 its first lithium deuteride fueled thermonuclear weapon. Castle Bravo's yield was , 2.5 times the predicted , due to unforeseen additional reactions involving lithium-7, which led to the unexpected radioactive contamination of areas to the east of Bikini Atoll. At the time, it was the most powerful artificial explosion in history. Fallout, the heaviest of which was in the form of pulverized surface coral from the detonation, fell on residents of Rongelap and Utirik atolls, while the more particulate and gaseous fallout spread around the world. The inhabitants of the islands were not evacuated until three days later and suffered radiation sickness. Twenty-three crew members of the Ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle Romeo
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. It was detonated on March 26, 1954, at Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the Castle Bravo test. It was the first such barge-based test, a necessity that had come about because the powerful thermonuclear devices obliterated the small islands following detonation. Deployment The tested design became the first air-droppable thermonuclear device, initially the "emergency capability" EC-17, of which only five were made. The first deployable staged radiation implosion Teller-Ulam thermonuclear weapon evolved into the Mark 17, of which 200 were made. Both of those were huge devices, weighing and respectively. As a result, only the B-36 was capable of carrying that first generation of thermonuclear bombs. They were also som ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TNT Equivalent
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a metric ton (1,000 kilograms) of TNT. In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, (or 4184 joules) of energy is released. This convention intends to compare the destructiveness of an event with that of conventional explosive materials, of which TNT is a typical example, although other conventional explosives such as dynamite contain more energy. Kiloton and megaton The "kiloton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 terajoules (). The "megaton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 petajoules (). The kiloton and megaton of TNT have traditionally been used to describe the energy output, and hence the destructive power, of a nuclear weapon. The TNT equivalent appears in various nuclear weapon control treaties, and has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle Air Museum
Castle Air Museum is a military aviation museum located in Atwater, California, United States adjacent to Castle Airport, a former United States Air Force Strategic Air Command base which was closed in 1995, after the end of the Cold War. It is one of the largest aerospace museums displaying vintage aircraft in the western United States. History and information The museum opened with 12 aircraft on 20 June 1981 as a branch of the United States Air Force Museum system. Only four months later, an additional four aircraft were placed on display. Then in 1983, an audit criticized leadership for poor accountability of resources, displaying aircraft outside the museum's mission, and lack of security. When Castle Air Force Base was closed in April 1995 and became Castle Airport, the museum similarly became private. The loss of federal funding eventually caused financial problems for the museum. It currently displays over 60 restored World War II, Korean War, Cold War, and moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atwater, CA
Atwater is a city on State Route 99 in Merced County, California, United States. Atwater is west-northwest of Merced, at an elevation of . The population as of the 2020 census was 31,970, up from 28,168 in 2010. Geography Atwater is in northern Merced County, between Merced, the county seat, to the southeast and Livingston to the northwest. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of . 99.92% of it is land and 0.08% is water. The city includes Castle Air Museum, but does not include the former Castle Air Force Base proper, now repurposed as Castle Airport. History The railroad reached Atwater in the 1870s, and a town grew around it. The first post office opened in 1880. Atwater incorporated in 1922. The name honors Marshall D. Atwater, a wheat farmer whose land was used by the railroad for its station. North of the town is the site of Castle Air Force Base, the former World War II Merced Army Airfield. Castle was selected for closure under the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Nuclear Weapons
This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin, and then by type within the states. United States US nuclear weapons of all types – bombs, warheads, shells, and others – are numbered in the same sequence starting with the Mark 1 and () ending with the W-91 (which was canceled prior to introduction into service). All designs which were formally intended to be weapons at some point received a number designation. Pure test units which were experiments (and not intended to be weapons) are not numbered in this sequence. Early weapons were very large and could only be used as free fall bombs. These were known by "Mark" designators, like the Mark 4 which was a development of the Fat Man weapon. As weapons became more sophisticated they also became much smaller and lighter, allowing them to be used in many roles. At this time the weapons began to receive designations based on their role; bombs were given the prefix "B", while the same warhead used in other r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Weapon Design
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: * pure fission weapons, the simplest and least technically demanding, were the first nuclear weapons built and have so far been the only type ever used in warfare (by the United States on Japan during WWII). * boosted fission weapons increase yield beyond that of the implosion design by using small quantities of fusion fuel to enhance the fission chain reaction. Boosting can more than double the weapon's fission energy yield. * staged thermonuclear weapons are essentially arrangements of two or more "stages", most usually two. The first stage is normally a boosted fission weapon as above (except for the earliest thermonuclear weapons, which used a pure fission weapon instead). Its detonation causes it to shine intensely with x-radiation, which illuminates and implodes the second stage filled wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teller-Ulam Design
A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H 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. Modern fusion weapons consist essentially of two main components: a nuclear fission primary stage (fueled by or ) and a separate nuclear fusion secondary stage containing thermonuclear fuel: the heavy hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, or in modern weapons lithium deuteride ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Nuclear Weapon Design")
-LLNL.jpg "Click for more on -> Teller-Ulam Design")