how does atom bomb work.what is the cost of producing an atom bomb?

Answer 1

The total cost of the Manhattan project was $2 billion which is about the equivalent of $26 billion today!

- first website

Nuclear bombs involve the forces, strong and weak, that hold the nucleus of an atom together, especially atoms with unstable nuclei (see How Nuclear Radiation Works for details). There are two basic ways that nuclear energy can be released from an atom:

Nuclear fission - You can split the nucleus of an atom into two smaller fragments with a neutron. This method usually involves isotopes of uranium (uranium-235, uranium-233) or plutonium-239.
Nuclear fusion -You can bring two smaller atoms, usually hydrogen or hydrogen isotopes (deuterium, tritium), together to form a larger one (helium or helium isotopes); this is how the sun produces energy.

In either process, fission or fusion, large amounts of heat energy and radiation are given off.

To build an atomic bomb, you need:

A source of fissionable or fusionable fuel
A triggering device
A way to allow the majority of fuel to fission or fuse before the explosion occurs (otherwise the bomb will fizzle out)

- second website. Has lots of information in how it actually works.

Answer 2

There are two kinds of atomic bombs: uranium and plutonium. The uranium bomb (which flattened Hiroshima) was basically a gun which fired a slug of Uranium 235 about the size of a can of soup into three rings of U-235 to make a single mass, weighing about 30 pounds. Neutrons (whether naturally occurring or from a source in the device -- I do not know which) cause a fission of U-235 atoms; the fissions release more neutrons which cause more fissions, and the reaction grows exponentially until the high temperature and pressure from the released energy blows the device apart. This arrangement is not particularly efficient in terms of the amount of bang per gram of fuel, but it was easy to build and worked the first time it was tried. The uranium was prepared at Oak Ridge by a very costly process involving gaseous diffusion (which does not give a lot of separation but can handle a lot of material) and electromagnetic separation (which gives good separation but is very slow).
The plutonium bomb used a sphere of Plutonium 239, with a neutron emitter at its center. The fuel was compressed to supercriticality by a spherical shock wave, generated by explosive lenses using explosives of differing detonation velocities; this rather complex arrangement (called implosion) was made necessary by contamination of the Pu-239 by Pu-240, which spontaneously fissions and would have started the nuclear reaction before a gun arrangement had reached maximum supercriticality. It was considered necessary to test this device, and that was successfully done in New Mexico in July 1945. The Nagasaki bomb, using this arrangement, was detonated in August. The plutonium fuel was prepared in three reactors built at Hanford, Washington; neutrons in the reactors converted U-238 into U-239 which decays rather rapidly into Pu-239. The plutonium is separated from the rest of the fuel by chemical processes which generate lots of highly radioactive waste, the storage of which is a continuing problem.
Subsequent work has featured using implosion techniques to better use U-235, and improvements in the physical arrangement of the bomb components, as well as the development of the hydrogen bomb, for which details see the reference. The costs of all of this are very large, and not very practical to do except in a nationally-funded laboratory.

Answer 3

It costs a lot. The hardest part is getting enough of the weapons grade Uranium (which means enough of a certain isotope of Uranium). If you get enough of this Uranium in a single location, it can spontaneously start a nuclear reaction (only takes a few neutrons to starts and there are plenty of those around) that turns into a chain reaction - i.e., the U nuclei undergo fission - they split apart.

During WWII, Oakridge National Lab was in charge of enriching the Uranium, but it was so top secret that the operators didn't know what they were doing. So they were storing all this enriched Uranium in one location until someone from Los Alamos came to visit and told them it was very bad idea. We could very well have had an atomic explosion right here Tennessee if they hadn't stopped storing it like that.

Anyway, so the trick with an atomic bomb is to get this U, keep it separated in chunks below the critical mass until you get ready to explode it, and then, after dropping from a plane, at a certain altitude (in order to cause the most damage) you want the chunks of U to come together to make a critical mass. At the very moment, you also want a neutron source to start spitting neutrons out in order to cause the chain reaction to start. After that, it's adios to anyone within the blast radius.

To see the actual design of the bombs dropped in WWII, most chemistry and physics texts talk about it. They had wedges of U that were brought together using TNT to make the critical mass at just the right time. Quite a challenge from an engineering point of view.

All that I just said is basically common knowledge. The details are top-secret of course.

Answer 4

Nuclear weapons work by two means. First is the fission type device such as those used on Japan in 1945. These use Uranium 235 or Plutonium 239 isotopes as fuel for the reaction. Both these isotopes are extremely difficult and expensive to manufacture. Naturally occurring uranium does not have a high enough cross-section for fission to produce an explosion, and Plutonium is not a naturally occurring element and must be manufactured in a reactor.
The second type is a hydrogen bomb that uses fusion of hydrogen and helium isotope to produce truly gigantic explosions. These bombs are initiated or set off by a smaller fission device.
Again it is very difficult and expensive to manufacture a nuclear device.

Answer 5

It goes boom and the blast blows everything away and then the radiation slowly kills. It cost a lot of money to make one and most country's don't the material because its not something you can buy in the open market. Owning such material is grounds to be arrested for terrorism.

Answer 6

Atoms hit ea. other really fast mutiplying the power of the atom. The cost depends on the purity of the plutonium and size of it.

Answer 7

it does neuclear fission(breaks up the neucleus of an atom)thus releasing a lotta energy.this excess energy may be in the form of heat .light etc---

actually radioactive energy is also released which mostly is responsible because the atoms which do breakup are the very heavy ones ---which are usually of radioactive elements

Answer 8

According to most movies you can do it for under $20 million and some parts from radio shack.

Answer 9

It works off radioactive material going supercritical and then you have a very big boom

Answer 10

I am suspecting you are a terrorist.

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