How does a nuclear missle explode on impact?

Answer 1

I don't know what you are asking. The explosion can be a high altitude blast, an air blast. a ground blast, an underground blast. It all depends on the tactical situation. Underground detonation is a recent addition to our tactical toolbox to take out hardened underground bunkers (those not susceptible to conventional "bunker busters") with minimal damage to the surrounding area.

Answer 2

They dont explode on impact - i.e. the impact doesn't set off the bang. That is set off by a timer that tells it how high up to explode.

Can nukes be used of the surface?

Yes: Called a ground burst, the nuke will detonate on impact and even slightly below ground (shallow surface burst) if the missle is bunker buster type. The effect of a ground burst if to concentrate the explosion over a much smaller area. There will still be the light, heat and shockwave, but a significant part of the energy released will go into the ground and create a crater. A ground burst would be used to destroy, for example, a buried missle silo or a hard target such as a bridge, dam or runway. A groundburst is very "dirty" explosion. A large amount of material will be vaporised and sucked up into the mushroom cloud. It will then fall back down as radioactive fallout. A ground burst weapon will be (usually) of a smaller yield, from 1kt to 100kt.

No: An air burst is used when the effect of the explosion is needed over a wider area. When detonated, the shock wave will travel further than a ground burst. For any given weapon size, there is an ideal height to explode it at. When this happens, the shock wave that reflects off the ground from underneath the detonation will merge with the shockwave travelling out from either side. The combined shockwave is called the "Mach Front" and packs twice the punch. Air burst are used for large softer targets such as military bases, large troop formations in open ground, industrial facilites and cities. They may be large in size - 100kt up to 20Mt.

kt = kiloton or 1,000 tons equivalent if TNT
Mt= megaton ot 1,000,000 tons equivalent of TNT

In a full blown nuclear war, a large city like London may receive around 20 ground bursts and 5 large air bursts.

Peace! Long live the CND!

Answer 3

Most nuclear missiles are not designed to explode on impact, they are designed to explode at a predetermined altitude. They have an internal barometric altimeter that senses how high the missile is and when the altimeter reaches a preset altitude on the descent it sends a signal to begin the reaction (explosion).

If the missile impacts the ground, because of a malfunction, there could be a small explosion and there could be some radiation leakage from the warhead, the damage would be fairly localized.

If a missile were intentionally detonated at or below ground level then the initial blast damage would be greatly reduced and the secondary damage from the radiation would not be as widespread as with an air-burst weapon.

Let's just hope that we don't see any of these devices used in ours or our ancestor's lifetimes.....

Answer 4

Often they are set to detonate before impact, but in short, the same way any other missile does. There is a sensor (in the simplest case something called an accellerometer, which detects sudden changes in velocity) which detects the impact, and this triggers the electronic circuit of the detonator. In the simplest nuclear missile this would detonate a small amount of conventional explosive which would in turn trigger the nuclear detonation. I'm deliberately not going to go into details.

Answer 5

Nuclear missile do not explode on impact, that is not the way they are most effective.

For maximum effect, a nuclear explosion has to be done at altitude, so that most of the energy will not "bounce off", and that part of the target area will not be protected by ground or tall building in the front.

Altitude is determined by pressure sensors.

Answer 6

Fissile material such as plutonium will explode if the mass is greater than a certain amount (the critical mass). There are simply too many neutrons within the lump for enough to escape and a chain reaction takes place.A weapon simply has two amount of plutonium which are less than the critical mass but become more when combined. The two section are simply fired at each other by a small conventional explosive.

Answer 7

The atomic bomb never made impact. Read on...
"At 2:45 A.M. local time, the Enola Gay, a B-29 bomber loaded with an atomic bomb, took off from the US air base on Tinian Island in the western Pacific. Six and a half hours later, at 8:15 A.M. Japan time, the bomb was dropped and it exploded a minute later at an estimated altitude of 580 +- 20 meters over central Hiroshima."

Answer 8

The fissionable material is surrounded by plastic explosive. The plastic explosive has to explode in the direction of the fissionable material and therefor shaped charges are used. Modern weapons use plastic explosive encased in something to give it the perfect shape. It then needs a detonator and a burst of high voltage to set of the detonator. The burst of high voltage usually comes from a largish fully charged capacitor. Obviously, the Capacitor has to be triggered by some kind of switch in the war head. basically, a push button switch - but one that requires a lot of force - the sort of force you get when a missile hits something to close the switch. I have a few Kg of Plutonium, some plastique and capacitors in the shed. You don't happen to have any detonators?

Answer 9

to get the most effect the nuclear bomb explodes about 1000 ft up. If u let it impact it would not cover so much area and it would leave much more radioactivity in the soil , and that would last long Maybe half life of 10,000 yr.

Answer 10

A very basic explanation of how a nuclear explosion is generated is:

A core of plutonium(other radioactive materials will work also) is surrounded by other explosives. When those other explosives are detonated they compress the plutonium to the point where that in turn explodes.

I know that is VERY simplistic but it is how nuclear "bombs" explode.

Answer 11

Not all missiles explode on impact. Especially nuclear ones. They normally detonate above ground.

If you want to know about the mechanics of it you should loook into nuclear fission.