what is the maximum megaton can a nuclear bomb contain and what it can destroy?

Answer 1

In theory there is no upper bound except those imposed by real-world engineering constraints.

The Russians popped an underground event in Siberia that was a bit over 50 megatons. It *moved* the entire Siberian techtonic plate something like a centimeter and they decided that was probably as big as they needed to test ☺

Say you detonated something in the 10 megaton range at an altitude of about 5 miles. Pretty much everything within about a 3 mile radius of 'ground zero' is going to be, literally, vaporized. In fact, the top 30 or 40 feet of ground zero is going to be vaporized, leaving a sort of round 'dish' shaped depression a mile or so across in the ground. Inside this radius, the 'dish' will be coated with a 'slag' formed as melted soil and rock cools. Depending on the minerals in the area, some of these slags are quite colerful and would make excellent souvenirs. (Just avoid the ones that glow in the dark ☺) Everything out to about 10 miles or so will be knocked flat and/or incinerated (total destruction on the surface) by the heat and shock wave. The structural damage begins to fall off after that, but significant damage to structures would still occur at ranges of 20 or more miles. People directly exposed to the event would be killed (instantly) by the radiation at distances of up to about 10 miles. After that, survival probabilities would increase logarithmically out to about 30 to 35 miles. Life expectency (which would be zero out to ranges up to about 10 miles) would go up along a logarithmic curve out to a range of about 100 miles or so, at which point the mean expected lifetime (post event) would be about the same as it was before the event. One exception would be optical effects. Anyone looking in the general direction of the event would probably be blinded out to a range of 30 to 40 miles.


Doug

Answer 2

Tsar Bomba was > 50 megatons, but capable of 100 megatons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

"The heat could have caused third degree burns at a distance of 100 km. The seismic shock created by the detonation was measurable even on its third passage around the earth."

Answer 3

unlimited. at the least the earth.