Atomic Bomb question?

Question

so there are 2 main types of A bombs right? hydrogen and uranium (and plutonium 2 right?)

well do they work on the opposite principle? an h bomb works the same as the sun right? it ruses 2 (or 4 like the sun?) hydrogens together and releases energy. so a uranium bomb splits uranium atoms right? because to fuse any atoms above iron requires enerygy, so spliting them would release it, right?

just wondering.

Answer 1

No, this is wrong. There is the gun type and the implosion type. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a uranium gun -type bomb and the one dropped on Nagasaki was a plutonium implosion device. Two different designs for triggering the atomic explosion.

Answer 2

A bomb: atomic bomb (fission)
H bomb: Hydrogen bomb (fusion)

Fission: a large atom (for example, Uranium or Plutonium) splits into smaller atoms. It takes a lot less "binding" energy to hold together small atoms than it takes to keep a large atom together. It is the difference that is liberated as energy; slowly in a reactor (to produce electricity) or very rapidly (bomb). The break-even atom is iron. To split something smaller than iron, you have to add energy. To split a larger atom, you can liberate energy.

Fission can spontaneous. Or it can be triggered by having a neutron hit the atom. It just so happens that fission also liberates neutrons. If you have enough fissile material (the sufficient mass is called "critical mass"), then the liberated neutrons will always hit other atoms which will, in turn, liberate more neutrons as they split and these new neutrons will hit other atoms... a chain reaction. For Plutonium, the critical mass is more than 6 kg.

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Fusion: small atoms (or atomic particles) fusing together to form larger atoms. As long as you work with atoms much smaller than iron, you will liberate energy as it takes a bit less "binding energy" to hold a larger atom than a small one.

The reaction with the best "profit" is going from 4 Hydrogen to 1 He (it takes many steps -- check out fusion on Wikipedia). However, the natural repulsion between the protons (they are all positive, therefore they push each other away) means that you need energy to start the process. In the Sun, this is done with very large pressure and temperatures near 15 million degrees. The protons are so close together (pressure) and hit each other so fast (temperature) that they overcome the repulsion.
The energy released by the fusion is more than the energy needed to trigger it.
For a bomb, the energy required to fuse the light atoms in the H-bomb is given by an A-bomb surrounding the core.

The A-bomb is triggered to explode with a lot of energy directed inwards (a lot still spills outwards), which fuses the light atoms and triggers the H-bomb.

microseconds of fun for all.

Answer 3

Thank you, Raymond. Everybody before Raymond was wrong, and I was beginning to wonder if anybody that knew anything about this subject was going to write an answer.

There is no such thing as a nitrogen bomb.

The gun and implosion type are two different methods of detonating a fission bomb, rather than two different types of bombs.

A hydrogen bomb is also called a thermonuclear bomb, and the principle is more like that of the sun and other stars, though the stars don't pop it all in one pop. We haven't figured out how to do that, yet.

And so on...

But Raymond's answer is sound.

Answer 4

Well...sort of.

First, the generic term is 'nuclear weapon'. The phrase 'A bombs' refers to fission weapons, whereas 'h bombs' or 'hydrogen bombs' or 'thermonuclear weapons' refers to weapons that derive a sizeable fraction of their yield from fusion.

Thermonuclear weapons rely on fusion reactions rather dissimilar to those occuring in the Sun. The Sun mainly fuses common hydrogen in a series of reactions to produce helium-4...amongst other species. Thermonuclear weapons usually fuse deuterium and tritium...the rate and temperature of this reactions are tremendously faster and hotter than those in the Sun's core.

You are correct about the overall thermondynamics of fission and fusion for light and heavier-than-iron elements. Iron has the highest mass/nucleon of all the elements...

Answer 5

You are mostly correct. The object is to create a critical mass that starts a chain reaction.
There are two basic types of nuclear weapons. The first are weapons which produce their explosive energy through nuclear fission reactions alone. These are known colloquially as atomic bombs, A-bombs, or fission bombs. In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is assembled into a supercritical mass—the amount of material needed to start an exponentially growing nuclear chain reaction—either by shooting one piece of subcritical material into another (the "gun" method), or by compressing a subcritical sphere of material chemical explosives to many times its original density (the "implosion" method). The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former, and only the latter approach can be used if plutonium is the fissile material used.

A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range between the equivalent of less than a ton of TNT upwards to around 500,000 tons (500 kilotons) of TNT.

The second basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large amount of its energy through nuclear fusion reactions, and can be over a thousand times more powerful than fission bombs as fusion reactions release much more energy per unit of mass than fission reactions. These are known as hydrogen bombs, H-bombs, thermonuclear bombs, or fusion bombs.

Answer 6

ATOMIC BOMB

The atomic bomb is one of the most powerful and destructive bombs ever. It was the bomb used on Japan to force them into surrendering and eventually leading into peace. As a result of it being so extreme it killed many people in Japan which resulted in it leaving many people seriously injured and homeless. Japan had to build up totally from scratch-which is why it is so successful today! There were two types of bombs, hydrogen and nitrogen.

Answer 7

It's pretty clear that Raymond has this one wrapped up but read these quotes from Raymond.

"It takes a lot less "binding" energy to hold together small atoms than it takes to keep a large atom together."

"... it takes a bit less "binding energy" to hold a larger atom than a small one."

These seem to be at odds with each other, any explanations.

Answer 8

what do you need this for? ur homework? haha.

Answer 9

uhhh... yeah.

Answer 10

i am reporting you