HYDROGEN BOMB, a weapon of great destructive power (on the order of megatons in TNT equivalent), the operating principle of which is based on the reaction of thermonuclear fusion of light nuclei. The source of explosion energy is processes similar to those occurring on the Sun and other stars.
In 1961, the most powerful hydrogen bomb explosion ever occurred.
On the morning of October 30 at 11:32 a.m. over Novaya Zemlya in the area of Mityushi Bay at an altitude of 4000 m above the land surface was exploded hydrogen bomb with a capacity of 50 million tons of TNT.
Soviet Union conducted a test of the most powerful thermonuclear device in history. Even in the “half” version (and the maximum power of such a bomb is 100 megatons), the explosion energy was ten times higher than the total power of all explosives used by all the warring parties during the Second World War (including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The shock wave from the explosion circled the globe three times, the first time in 36 hours and 27 minutes.
The light flash was so bright that, despite the continuous cloud cover, it was visible even from the command post in the village of Belushya Guba (almost 200 km away from the epicenter of the explosion). The mushroom cloud grew to a height of 67 km. By the time of the explosion, while the bomb was slowly falling on a huge parachute from a height of 10,500 to the calculated detonation point, the Tu-95 carrier aircraft with the crew and its commander, Major Andrei Egorovich Durnovtsev, was already in the safe zone. The commander was returning to his airfield as a lieutenant colonel, Hero of the Soviet Union. In an abandoned village - 400 km from the epicenter - wooden houses were destroyed, and stone ones lost their roofs, windows and doors. Many hundreds of kilometers from the test site, as a result of the explosion, the conditions for the passage of radio waves changed for almost an hour, and radio communications stopped.
The bomb was developed by V.B. Adamskiy, Yu.N. Smirnov, A.D. Sakharov, Yu.N. Babaev and Yu.A. Trutnev (for which Sakharov was awarded the third medal of the Hero of Socialist Labor). The mass of the “device” was 26 tons; a specially modified Tu-95 strategic bomber was used to transport and drop it.
The “super bomb,” as A. Sakharov called it, did not fit in the bomb bay of the aircraft (its length was 8 meters and its diameter was about 2 meters), so the non-power part of the fuselage was cut out and a special lifting mechanism and device for attaching the bomb were installed; at the same time, during the flight it still stuck out more than half of it. The entire body of the aircraft, even the blades of its propellers, was covered with a special white paint that protected it from the flash of light during an explosion. The body of the accompanying laboratory aircraft was covered with the same paint.
The results of the explosion of the charge, which received the name “Tsar Bomba” in the West, were impressive:
* The nuclear “mushroom” of the explosion rose to a height of 64 km; the diameter of its cap reached 40 kilometers.
The fireball of the explosion reached the ground and almost reached the height of the bomb release (that is, the radius of the fireball of the explosion was approximately 4.5 kilometers).
* The radiation caused third-degree burns at a distance of up to one hundred kilometers.
* At the peak of radiation, the explosion reached 1% solar power.
* The shock wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times.
* Ionization of the atmosphere caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for one hour.
* Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion at a distance of thousands of kilometers from the epicenter. Also, the shock wave to some extent retained its destructive power at a distance of thousands of kilometers from the epicenter.
* The acoustic wave reached Dixon Island, where windows in houses were broken by the blast wave.
The political result of this test was the Soviet Union's demonstration of its possession of unlimited weapons of mass destruction - the maximum megatonnage of a bomb tested by the United States at that time was four times less than that of the Tsar Bomba. In fact, increasing the power of a hydrogen bomb is achieved by simply increasing the mass of the working material, so, in principle, there are no factors preventing the creation of a 100-megaton or 500-megaton hydrogen bomb. (In fact, the Tsar Bomba was designed for a 100-megaton equivalent; the planned explosion power was cut in half, according to Khrushchev, “So as not to break all the glass in Moscow”). With this test, the Soviet Union demonstrated the ability to create a hydrogen bomb of any power and a means of delivering the bomb to the detonation point.
Thermonuclear reactions. The interior of the Sun contains a gigantic amount of hydrogen, which is in a state of ultra-high compression at a temperature of approx. 15,000,000 K. At such high temperatures and plasma densities, hydrogen nuclei experience constant collisions with each other, some of which end in their fusion and ultimately the formation of heavier helium nuclei. Such reactions, called thermonuclear fusion, are accompanied by the release of huge amount energy. According to the laws of physics, the energy release during thermonuclear fusion is due to the fact that during the formation of a heavier nucleus, part of the mass of the light nuclei included in its composition is converted into a colossal amount of energy. That is why the Sun, having a gigantic mass, loses approx. every day in the process of thermonuclear fusion. 100 billion tons of matter and releases energy, thanks to which life on Earth became possible.
Isotopes of hydrogen. The hydrogen atom is the simplest of all existing atoms. It consists of one proton, which is its nucleus, around which a single electron rotates. Careful studies of water (H 2 O) have shown that it contains negligible quantities of “heavy” water containing the “heavy isotope” of hydrogen - deuterium (2 H). The deuterium nucleus consists of a proton and a neutron - a neutral particle with a mass close to a proton.
There is a third isotope of hydrogen - tritium, whose nucleus contains one proton and two neutrons. Tritium is unstable and undergoes spontaneous radioactive decay, turning into an isotope of helium. Traces of tritium have been found in the Earth's atmosphere, where it is formed as a result of the interaction of cosmic rays with gas molecules that make up the air. Tritium is produced artificially in a nuclear reactor by irradiating the lithium-6 isotope with a stream of neutrons.
Development of the hydrogen bomb. Preliminary theoretical analysis has shown that thermonuclear fusion is most easily accomplished in a mixture of deuterium and tritium. Taking this as a basis, US scientists in early 1950 began implementing a project to create a hydrogen bomb (HB). The first tests of a model nuclear device were carried out at the Enewetak test site in the spring of 1951; thermonuclear fusion was only partial. Significant success was achieved on November 1, 1951 when testing a massive nuclear device, the explosion power of which was 4? 8 Mt TNT equivalent.
The first hydrogen aerial bomb was detonated in the USSR on August 12, 1953, and on March 1, 1954, the Americans detonated a more powerful (approximately 15 Mt) aerial bomb on Bikini Atoll. Since then, both powers have carried out explosions of advanced megaton weapons.
The explosion at Bikini Atoll was accompanied by the release of large quantity radioactive substances. Some of them fell hundreds of kilometers from the explosion site on the Japanese fishing vessel "Lucky Dragon", while others covered the island of Rongelap. Since thermonuclear fusion produces stable helium, the radioactivity from the explosion of a pure hydrogen bomb should be no more than that of an atomic detonator of a thermonuclear reaction. However, in the case under consideration, the predicted and actual radioactive fallout differed significantly in quantity and composition.
The mechanism of action of a hydrogen bomb. The sequence of processes occurring during the explosion of a hydrogen bomb can be represented as follows. First, the thermonuclear reaction initiator charge (a small atomic bomb) located inside the HB shell explodes, resulting in a neutron flash and creating the high temperature necessary to initiate thermonuclear fusion. Neutrons bombard an insert made of lithium deuteride - a compound of deuterium with lithium (a lithium isotope with mass number 6 is used). Lithium-6 is split into helium and tritium under the influence of neutrons. Thus, the atomic fuse creates the materials necessary for synthesis directly in the actual bomb itself.
Then a thermonuclear reaction begins in a mixture of deuterium and tritium, the temperature inside the bomb rapidly increases, involving more and more hydrogen in the synthesis. With a further increase in temperature, a reaction between deuterium nuclei, characteristic of a pure hydrogen bomb, could begin. All reactions, of course, occur so quickly that they are perceived as instantaneous.
Fission, fusion, fission (superbomb). In fact, in a bomb, the sequence of processes described above ends at the stage of the reaction of deuterium with tritium. Further, the bomb designers chose not to use nuclear fusion, but nuclear fission. The fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei produces helium and fast neutrons, the energy of which is high enough to cause nuclear fission of uranium-238 (the main isotope of uranium, much cheaper than the uranium-235 used in conventional atomic bombs). Fast neutrons split the atoms of the uranium shell of the superbomb. The fission of one ton of uranium creates energy equivalent to 18 Mt. Energy is used not only for explosion and heat generation. Each uranium nucleus splits into two highly radioactive “fragments.” The fission products include 36 different chemical elements and almost 200 radioactive isotopes. All this constitutes the radioactive fallout that accompanies superbomb explosions.
Thanks to the unique design and the described mechanism of action, weapons of this type can be made as powerful as desired. It is much cheaper than atomic bombs of the same power.
The destructive power of which, when exploded, cannot be stopped by anyone. What is the most powerful bomb in the world? To answer this question, you need to understand the features of certain bombs.
What is a bomb?
Nuclear power plants operate on the principle of releasing and trapping nuclear energy. This process must be controlled. The released energy turns into electricity. An atomic bomb causes a chain reaction that is completely uncontrollable, and the huge amount of released energy causes terrible destruction. Uranium and plutonium are not so harmless elements of the periodic table; they lead to global catastrophes.
Atomic bomb
To understand what the most powerful atomic bomb on the planet is, we’ll learn more about everything. Hydrogen and atomic bombs belong to nuclear energy. If you combine two pieces of uranium, but each has a mass below the critical mass, then this “union” will far exceed the critical mass. Each neutron participates in a chain reaction because it splits the nucleus and releases another 2-3 neutrons, which cause new decay reactions.
Neutron force is completely beyond human control. In less than a second, hundreds of billions of newly formed decays not only release enormous amounts of energy, but also become sources of intense radiation. This radioactive rain covers the earth, fields, plants and all living things in a thick layer. If we talk about the disasters in Hiroshima, we can see that 1 gram caused the death of 200 thousand people.
Working principle and advantages of a vacuum bomb
It is believed that a vacuum bomb created by the latest technologies, can compete with nuclear. The fact is that instead of TNT, a gas substance is used here, which is several tens of times more powerful. The high-power aircraft bomb is the most powerful vacuum bomb in the world, which is not a nuclear weapon. It can destroy the enemy, but houses and equipment will not be damaged, and there will be no decay products.
What is the principle of its operation? Immediately after being dropped from the bomber, a detonator is activated at some distance from the ground. The body is destroyed and a huge cloud is sprayed. When mixed with oxygen, it begins to penetrate anywhere - into houses, bunkers, shelters. The burning out of oxygen creates a vacuum everywhere. When this bomb is dropped, a supersonic wave is produced and a very high temperature is generated.
The difference between an American vacuum bomb and a Russian one
The differences are that the latter can destroy an enemy even in a bunker using the appropriate warhead. During an explosion in the air, the warhead falls and hits the ground hard, burrowing to a depth of up to 30 meters. After the explosion, a cloud is formed, which, increasing in size, can penetrate into shelters and explode there. American warheads are filled with ordinary TNT, so they destroy buildings. A vacuum bomb destroys a specific object because it has a smaller radius. It doesn’t matter which bomb is the most powerful - any of them delivers an incomparable destructive blow that affects all living things.
Hydrogen bomb
The hydrogen bomb is another terrible nuclear weapon. The combination of uranium and plutonium generates not only energy, but also temperature, which rises to a million degrees. Hydrogen isotopes combine to form helium nuclei, which creates a source of colossal energy. The hydrogen bomb is the most powerful - this is an indisputable fact. It is enough just to imagine that its explosion is equal to the explosions of 3,000 atomic bombs in Hiroshima. Both in the USA and in former USSR you can count 40 thousand bombs of varying power - nuclear and hydrogen.
The explosion of such ammunition is comparable to the processes observed inside the Sun and stars. Fast neutrons split the uranium shells of the bomb itself at enormous speed. Not only heat is released, but also radioactive fallout. There are up to 200 isotopes. The production of such nuclear weapons is cheaper than atomic weapons, and their effect can be enhanced as many times as desired. This is the most powerful bomb detonated in the Soviet Union on August 12, 1953.
Consequences of the explosion
The result of a hydrogen bomb explosion is threefold. The very first thing that happens is a powerful blast wave is observed. Its power depends on the height of the explosion and the type of terrain, as well as the degree of air transparency. Large firestorms can form that do not subside for several hours. And yet, the secondary and most dangerous consequence that the most powerful thermonuclear bomb can cause is radioactive radiation and contamination of the surrounding area for a long time.
Radioactive remains from a hydrogen bomb explosion
When an explosion occurs, the fireball contains many very small radioactive particles that are retained in the atmospheric layer of the earth and remain there for a long time. Upon contact with the ground, this fireball creates incandescent dust consisting of decay particles. First, the larger one settles, and then the lighter one, which is carried hundreds of kilometers with the help of the wind. These particles can be seen with the naked eye; for example, such dust can be seen on snow. It is fatal if anyone gets nearby. The smallest particles can remain in the atmosphere for many years and “travel” in this way, circling the entire planet several times. Their radioactive emissions will become weaker by the time they fall out as precipitation.
Its explosion is capable of wiping Moscow off the face of the earth in a matter of seconds. The city center could easily evaporate in the literal sense of the word, and everything else could turn into tiny rubble. The most powerful bomb in the world would wipe out New York and all its skyscrapers. It would leave behind a twenty-kilometer-long molten smooth crater. With such an explosion, it would not have been possible to escape by going down to the subway. The entire territory within a radius of 700 kilometers would be destroyed and infected with radioactive particles.
Explosion of the Tsar Bomba - to be or not to be?
In the summer of 1961, scientists decided to conduct a test and observe the explosion. The most powerful bomb in the world was to explode at a test site located in the very north of Russia. The huge area of the landfill occupies the entire territory of the island New Earth. The scale of the defeat was supposed to be 1000 kilometers. The explosion could have left industrial centers such as Vorkuta, Dudinka and Norilsk contaminated. Scientists, having comprehended the scale of the disaster, put their heads together and realized that the test was cancelled.
There was no place to test the famous and incredibly powerful bomb anywhere on the planet, only Antarctica remained. But on icy continent It also failed to carry out an explosion, since the territory is considered international and obtaining permission for such tests is simply unrealistic. I had to reduce the charge of this bomb by 2 times. The bomb was nevertheless detonated on October 30, 1961 in the same place - on the island of Novaya Zemlya (at an altitude of about 4 kilometers). During the explosion, a monstrous huge atomic mushroom was observed, which rose 67 kilometers into the air, and the shock wave circled the planet three times. By the way, in the Arzamas-16 museum in the city of Sarov, you can watch newsreels of the explosion on an excursion, although they claim that this spectacle is not for the faint of heart.
Ivy Mike - the first atmospheric test of a hydrogen bomb conducted by the United States at Eniwetak Atoll on November 1, 1952.
65 years ago, the Soviet Union detonated its first thermonuclear bomb. How does this weapon work, what can it do and what can it not do? On August 12, 1953, the first “practical” thermonuclear bomb was detonated in the USSR. We will tell you about the history of its creation and figure out whether it is true that such ammunition hardly pollutes the environment, but can destroy the world.
The idea of thermonuclear weapons, where the nuclei of atoms are fused rather than split, as in an atomic bomb, appeared no later than 1941. It came to the minds of physicists Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller. Around the same time, they became involved in the Manhattan Project and helped create the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Designing a thermonuclear weapon turned out to be much more difficult.
You can roughly understand how much more complicated a thermonuclear bomb is than a nuclear bomb by the fact that working nuclear power plants have long been commonplace, and working and practical thermonuclear power plants are still science fiction.
In order for atomic nuclei to fuse with each other, they must be heated to millions of degrees. The Americans patented a design for a device that would allow this to be done in 1946 (the project was unofficially called Super), but they remembered it only three years later, when the USSR successfully tested a nuclear bomb.
US President Harry Truman said that the Soviet breakthrough should be answered with “the so-called hydrogen, or superbomb.”
By 1951, the Americans assembled the device and conducted tests under the code name "George". The design was a torus - in other words, a donut - with heavy isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. They were chosen because such nuclei are easier to merge than ordinary hydrogen nuclei. The fuse was a nuclear bomb. The explosion compressed deuterium and tritium, they merged, produced a stream of fast neutrons and ignited the uranium plate. In a conventional atomic bomb it does not fission: there are only slow neutrons, which cannot cause a stable isotope of uranium to fission. Although nuclear fusion energy accounted for approximately 10% of the total energy of the George explosion, the “ignition” of uranium-238 allowed the explosion to be twice as powerful as usual, to 225 kilotons.
Due to the additional uranium, the explosion was twice as powerful as with a conventional atomic bomb. But thermonuclear fusion accounted for only 10% of the energy released: tests showed that hydrogen nuclei were not compressed strongly enough.
Then mathematician Stanislav Ulam proposed a different approach - a two-stage nuclear fuse. His idea was to place a plutonium rod in the “hydrogen” zone of the device. The explosion of the first fuse “ignited” the plutonium, two shock waves and two streams of X-rays collided - the pressure and temperature jumped enough for thermonuclear fusion to begin. The new device was tested on the Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in 1952 - the explosive power of the bomb was already ten megatons of TNT.
However, this device was also unsuitable for use as a military weapon.
In order for hydrogen nuclei to merge, the distance between them must be minimal, so deuterium and tritium were cooled to a liquid state, almost to absolute zero. This required a huge cryogenic installation. The second thermonuclear device, essentially an enlarged modification of the George, weighed 70 tons - you can’t drop that from an airplane.
The USSR began developing a thermonuclear bomb later: the first scheme was proposed by Soviet developers only in 1949. It was supposed to use lithium deuteride. This is a metal, a solid substance, it does not need to be liquefied, and therefore a bulky refrigerator, as in the American version, was no longer required. Equally important, lithium-6, when bombarded with neutrons from the explosion, produced helium and tritium, which further simplifies the further fusion of nuclei.
The RDS-6s bomb was ready in 1953. Unlike American and modern thermonuclear devices, it did not contain a plutonium rod. This scheme is known as a “puff”: layers of lithium deuteride were interspersed with uranium layers. On August 12, RDS-6s was tested at the Semipalatinsk test site.
The power of the explosion was 400 kilotons of TNT - 25 times less than in the second attempt by the Americans. But the RDS-6s could be dropped from the air. The same bomb was going to be used on intercontinental ballistic missiles. And already in 1955, the USSR improved its thermonuclear brainchild, equipping it with a plutonium rod.
Today, virtually all thermonuclear devices—even North Korean ones, apparently—are a cross between early Soviet and American designs. They all use lithium deuteride as fuel and ignite it with a two-stage nuclear detonator.
As is known from leaks, even the most modern American thermonuclear warhead, the W88, is similar to the RDS-6c: layers of lithium deuteride are interspersed with uranium.
The difference is that modern thermonuclear munitions are not multi-megaton monsters like the Tsar Bomba, but systems with a yield of hundreds of kilotons, like the RDS-6s. No one has megaton warheads in their arsenals, since, militarily, a dozen less powerful warheads are more valuable than one strong one: this allows you to hit more targets.
Technicians work with an American W80 thermonuclear warhead
What a thermonuclear bomb cannot do
Hydrogen is an extremely common element; there is enough of it in the Earth’s atmosphere.
At one time it was rumored that a sufficiently powerful thermonuclear explosion could start a chain reaction and all the air on our planet would burn out. But this is a myth.
Not only gaseous, but also liquid hydrogen is not dense enough for thermonuclear fusion to begin. It needs to be compressed and heated by a nuclear explosion, preferably from different sides, as is done with a two-stage fuse. There are no such conditions in the atmosphere, so self-sustaining nuclear fusion reactions are impossible there.
This is not the only misconception about thermonuclear weapons. It is often said that an explosion is “cleaner” than a nuclear one: they say that when hydrogen nuclei fuse, there are fewer “fragments” - dangerous short-lived atomic nuclei that produce radioactive contamination - than when uranium nuclei fission.
This misconception is based on the fact that during a thermonuclear explosion, most of the energy is supposedly released due to the fusion of nuclei. This is not true. Yes, the Tsar Bomba was like that, but only because its uranium “jacket” was replaced with lead for testing. Modern two-stage fuses result in significant radioactive contamination.
The zone of possible total destruction by the Tsar Bomba, plotted on the map of Paris. The red circle is the zone of complete destruction (radius 35 km). The yellow circle is the size of the fireball (radius 3.5 km).
True, there is still a grain of truth in the myth of the “clean” bomb. Take the best American thermonuclear warhead, W88. If it explodes at the optimal height above the city, the area of severe destruction will practically coincide with the zone of radioactive damage, dangerous to life. There will be vanishingly few deaths from radiation sickness: people will die from the explosion itself, not from radiation.
Another myth says that thermonuclear weapons are capable of destroying all human civilization, and even life on Earth. This is also practically excluded. The energy of the explosion is distributed in three dimensions, therefore, with an increase in the power of the ammunition by a thousand times, the radius of destructive action increases only ten times - a megaton warhead has a radius of destruction only ten times greater than a tactical, kiloton warhead.
66 million years ago, an asteroid impact led to the extinction of most land animals and plants. The impact power was about 100 million megatons - this is 10 thousand times more than the total power of all thermonuclear arsenals of the Earth. 790 thousand years ago, an asteroid collided with the planet, the impact was a million megatons, but no traces of even moderate extinction (including our genus Homo) occurred after that. Both life in general and people are much stronger than they seem.
The truth about thermonuclear weapons is not as popular as the myths. Today it is as follows: thermonuclear arsenals of compact medium-yield warheads provide a fragile strategic balance, because of which no one can freely iron other countries of the world atomic weapons. Fear of a thermonuclear response is more than enough of a deterrent.
Hydrogen bomb
Thermonuclear weapons- a type of weapon of mass destruction, the destructive power of which is based on the use of the energy of the reaction of nuclear fusion of light elements into heavier ones (for example, the synthesis of two nuclei of deuterium (heavy hydrogen) atoms into one nucleus of a helium atom), which releases a colossal amount of energy. Having the same destructive factors as nuclear weapons, thermonuclear weapons have a much greater explosive power. In theory, it is limited only by the number of components available. It should be noted that radioactive contamination from a thermonuclear explosion is much weaker than from an atomic explosion, especially in relation to the power of the explosion. This gave grounds to call thermonuclear weapons “clean”. This term, which appeared in English-language literature, fell out of use by the end of the 70s.
General description
A thermonuclear explosive device can be built using either liquid deuterium or compressed gaseous deuterium. But the emergence of thermonuclear weapons became possible only thanks to a type of lithium hydride - lithium-6 deuteride. This is a compound of a heavy isotope of hydrogen - deuterium and an isotope of lithium with a mass number of 6.
Lithium-6 deuteride is a solid substance that allows you to store deuterium (the usual state of which under normal conditions is gas) at positive temperatures, and, in addition, its second component - lithium-6 - is the raw material for producing the most scarce isotope of hydrogen - tritium. Actually, 6 Li is the only industrial source of tritium:
Early US thermonuclear munitions also used natural lithium deuteride, which contains mainly an isotope of lithium with mass number 7. It also serves as a source of tritium, but for this the neutrons involved in the reaction must have an energy of 10 MeV or higher.
In order to create the neutrons and temperature (about 50 million degrees) necessary to start a thermonuclear reaction, a small atomic bomb first explodes in a hydrogen bomb. The explosion is accompanied sharp growth temperature, electromagnetic radiation, as well as the emergence of a powerful neutron flux. As a result of the reaction of neutrons with a lithium isotope, tritium is formed.
The presence of deuterium and tritium at the high temperature of the explosion of an atomic bomb initiates a thermonuclear reaction (234), which produces the main release of energy during the explosion of a hydrogen (thermonuclear) bomb. If the bomb body is made of natural uranium, then fast neutrons (carrying away 70% of the energy released during the reaction (242)) cause a new uncontrolled chain fission reaction in it. The third phase of the hydrogen bomb explosion occurs. In a similar way, a thermonuclear explosion of practically unlimited power is created.
An additional damaging factor is neutron radiation, which occurs during the explosion of a hydrogen bomb.
Thermonuclear munition device
Thermonuclear munitions exist both in the form of aerial bombs ( hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb), and warheads for ballistic and cruise missiles.
Story
USSR
The first Soviet project of a thermonuclear device resembled a layer cake, and therefore received the code name “Sloyka”. The design was developed in 1949 (even before the testing of the first Soviet nuclear bomb) by Andrei Sakharov and Vitaly Ginzburg and had a charge configuration different from the now famous Teller-Ulam split design. In the charge, layers of fissile material alternated with layers of fusion fuel - lithium deuteride mixed with tritium (“Sakharov’s first idea”). The fusion charge placed around the fission charge was ineffective in increasing the overall power of the device (modern Teller-Ulam devices can provide a multiplying factor of up to 30 times). In addition, the areas of fission and fusion charges were interspersed with a conventional explosive - the initiator of the primary fission reaction, which further increased the required mass of conventional explosives. The first device of the “Sloika” type was tested in 1953, receiving the name “Joe-4” in the West (the first Soviet nuclear tests received code names from the American nickname of Joseph (Joseph) Stalin “Uncle Joe”). The explosion power was equivalent to 400 kilotons with an efficiency of only 15 - 20%. Calculations have shown that the spread of unreacted material prevents an increase in power beyond 750 kilotons.
After the United States conducted the Ivy Mike tests in November 1952, which proved the possibility of creating megaton bombs, the Soviet Union began to develop another project. As Andrei Sakharov mentioned in his memoirs, the “second idea” was put forward by Ginzburg back in November 1948 and proposed using lithium deuteride in a bomb, which, when irradiated with neutrons, forms tritium and releases deuterium.
At the end of 1953, physicist Viktor Davidenko proposed placing the primary (fission) and secondary (fusion) charges in separate volumes, thus repeating the Teller-Ulam scheme. The next big step was proposed and developed by Sakharov and Yakov Zeldovich in the spring of 1954. It involved using X-rays from the fission reaction to compress lithium deuteride before fusion (“beam implosion”). Sakharov's "third idea" was tested during tests of the 1.6 megaton RDS-37 in November 1955. Further development This idea was confirmed by the practical absence of fundamental restrictions on the power of thermonuclear charges.
The Soviet Union demonstrated this with tests in October 1961, when a 50-megaton bomb delivered by a Tu-95 bomber was detonated on Novaya Zemlya. The efficiency of the device was almost 97%, and it was initially designed for a power of 100 megatons, which was subsequently cut in half by a strong-willed decision of the project management. It was the most powerful thermonuclear device ever developed and tested on Earth. So powerful that it practical application as a weapon it lost all meaning, even taking into account the fact that it was already tested in the form of a finished bomb.
USA
The idea of a nuclear fusion bomb initiated by an atomic charge was proposed by Enrico Fermi to his colleague Edward Teller back in 1941, at the very beginning of the Manhattan Project. Teller devoted much of his work during the Manhattan Project to working on the fusion bomb project, somewhat neglecting the atomic bomb itself. His focus on difficulties and the position of "devil's advocate" in discussions of problems forced Oppenheimer to lead Teller and other "problematic" physicists to the siding.
The first important and conceptual steps towards the implementation of the synthesis project were taken by Teller's collaborator Stanislav Ulam. To initiate thermonuclear fusion, Ulam proposed compressing the thermonuclear fuel before heating it, using factors from the primary fission reaction, and also placing the thermonuclear charge separately from the primary nuclear component of the bomb. These proposals made it possible to transfer the development of thermonuclear weapons to a practical level. Based on this, Teller proposed that the x-ray and gamma radiation generated by the primary explosion could transfer enough energy to the secondary component, located in a common shell with the primary, to carry out sufficient implosion (compression) to initiate a thermonuclear reaction. Teller and his supporters and opponents later discussed Ulam's contribution to the theory underlying this mechanism.
On October 30, 1961, the USSR exploded the most powerful bomb in world history: a 58-megaton hydrogen bomb (“Tsar Bomba”) was detonated at a test site on the island of Novaya Zemlya. Nikita Khrushchev joked that the original plan was to detonate a 100-megaton bomb, but the charge was reduced so as not to break all the glass in Moscow.
The explosion of AN602 was classified as a low air explosion of extremely high power. The results were impressive:
- The fireball of the explosion reached a radius of approximately 4.6 kilometers. Theoretically, it could have grown to the surface of the earth, but this was prevented by the reflected shock wave, which crushed and threw the ball off the ground.
- The light radiation could potentially cause third-degree burns at a distance of up to 100 kilometers.
- Ionization of the atmosphere caused radio interference even hundreds of kilometers from the test site for about 40 minutes
- The tangible seismic wave resulting from the explosion circled the globe three times.
- Witnesses felt the impact and were able to describe the explosion thousands of kilometers away from its center.
- The nuclear mushroom of the explosion rose to a height of 67 kilometers; the diameter of its two-tier “hat” reached (at the top tier) 95 kilometers.
- The sound wave generated by the explosion reached Dikson Island at a distance of about 800 kilometers. However, sources do not report any destruction or damage to structures even in the urban-type village of Amderma and the village of Belushya Guba located much closer (280 km) to the test site.
- Radioactive contamination of the experimental field with a radius of 2-3 km in the area of the epicenter was no more than 1 mR/hour; the testers appeared at the site of the epicenter 2 hours after the explosion. Radioactive contamination posed virtually no danger to test participants
All nuclear explosions carried out by countries of the world in one video:
The creator of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer, on the day of the first test of his brainchild said: “If hundreds of thousands of suns rose in the sky at once, their light could be compared with the radiance emanating from the Supreme Lord... I am Death, the great destroyer of the worlds, bringing death to all living things " These words were a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, which the American physicist read in the original.
Photographers from Lookout Mountain stand waist-deep in dust raised by the shock wave after a nuclear explosion (photo from 1953).
Challenge Name: Umbrella
Date: June 8, 1958
Power: 8 kilotons
An underwater nuclear explosion was carried out during Operation Hardtack. Decommissioned ships were used as targets.
Challenge Name: Chama (as part of Project Dominic)
Date: October 18, 1962
Location: Johnston Island
Power: 1.59 megatons
Challenge Name: Oak
Date: June 28, 1958
Location: Enewetak Lagoon in the Pacific Ocean
Yield: 8.9 megatons
Project Upshot Knothole, Annie Test. Date: March 17, 1953; project: Upshot Knothole; challenge: Annie; Location: Knothole, Nevada Test Site, Sector 4; power: 16 kt. (Photo: Wikicommons)
Challenge Name: Castle Bravo
Date: March 1, 1954
Location: Bikini Atoll
Explosion type: surface
Power: 15 megatons
The Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb was the most powerful explosion ever tested by the United States. The power of the explosion turned out to be much greater than the initial forecasts of 4-6 megatons.
Challenge Name: Castle Romeo
Date: March 26, 1954
Location: on a barge in Bravo Crater, Bikini Atoll
Explosion type: surface
Power: 11 megatons
The power of the explosion turned out to be 3 times greater than initial forecasts. Romeo was the first test carried out on a barge.
Project Dominic, Aztec Test
Challenge Name: Priscilla (as part of the "Plumbbob" challenge series)
Date: 1957
Yield: 37 kilotons
This is exactly what the process of releasing huge amounts of radiant and thermal energy looks like during an atomic explosion in the air over the desert. Here you can still see military equipment, which in a moment will be destroyed by the shock wave, captured in the form of a crown surrounding the epicenter of the explosion. You can see how the shock wave was reflected from earth's surface and is about to merge with the fireball.
Challenge Name: Grable (as part of Operation Upshot Knothole)
Date: May 25, 1953
Location: Nevada Nuclear Test Site
Power: 15 kilotons
At a test site in the Nevada desert, photographers from the Lookout Mountain Center in 1953 took a photograph of an unusual phenomenon (a ring of fire in a nuclear mushroom after the explosion of a shell from a nuclear cannon), the nature of which has long occupied the minds of scientists.
Project Upshot Knothole, Rake test. This test involved an explosion of a 15 kiloton atomic bomb launched by a 280mm atomic cannon. The test took place on May 25, 1953 at the Nevada Test Site. (Photo: National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
A mushroom cloud formed as a result atomic explosion testing "Trucks", carried out as part of the Dominic project.
Project Buster, Test Dog.
Project Dominic, Yeso test. Test: Yeso; date: June 10, 1962; project: Dominic; location: 32 km south of Christmas Island; test type: B-52, atmospheric, height – 2.5 m; power: 3.0 mt; charge type: atomic. (Wikicommons)
Challenge Name: YESO
Date: June 10, 1962
Location: Christmas Island
Power: 3 megatons
Testing "Licorn" in French Polynesia. Image #1. (Pierre J./French Army)
Challenge name: “Unicorn” (French: Licorne)
Date: July 3, 1970
Location: Atoll in French Polynesia
Yield: 914 kilotons
Testing "Licorn" in French Polynesia. Image #2. (Photo: Pierre J./French Army)
Testing "Licorn" in French Polynesia. Image #3. (Photo: Pierre J./French Army)
To get good images, test sites often employ entire teams of photographers. Photo: nuclear test explosion in the Nevada desert. On the right are visible rocket plumes, with the help of which scientists determine the characteristics of the shock wave.
Testing "Licorn" in French Polynesia. Image #4. (Photo: Pierre J./French Army)
Project Castle, Romeo Test. (Photo: zvis.com)
Project Hardtack, Umbrella Test. Challenge: Umbrella; date: June 8, 1958; project: Hardtack I; location: Enewetak Atoll lagoon; test type: underwater, depth 45 m; power: 8kt; charge type: atomic.
Project Redwing, Test Seminole. (Photo: Nuclear Weapons Archive)
Riya test. Atmospheric test of an atomic bomb in French Polynesia in August 1971. As part of this test, which took place on August 14, 1971, a thermonuclear warhead codenamed "Riya" with a yield of 1000 kt was detonated. The explosion occurred on the territory of Mururoa Atoll. This photo was taken from a distance of 60 km from the zero mark. Photo: Pierre J.
A mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion over Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right). During the final stages of World War II, the United States launched two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first explosion occurred on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. This was the only time nuclear weapons were used for military purposes. By order of President Truman, the US Army dropped the Little Boy nuclear bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, followed by the Fat Man nuclear bomb on Nagasaki on August 9. Within 2-4 months after the nuclear explosions, between 90,000 and 166,000 people died in Hiroshima, and between 60,000 and 80,000 in Nagasaki. (Photo: Wikicommons)
Upshot Knothole Project. Nevada Test Site, March 17, 1953. The blast wave completely destroyed Building No. 1, located at a distance of 1.05 km from the zero mark. The time difference between the first and second shot is 21/3 seconds. The camera was placed in a protective case with a wall thickness of 5 cm. The only light source in in this case there was a nuclear outbreak. (Photo: National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
Project Ranger, 1951. The name of the test is unknown. (Photo: National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
Trinity Test.
"Trinity" was the code name for the first nuclear weapons test. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, at a site located approximately 56 km southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the White Sands Missile Range. The test used an implosion-type plutonium bomb, nicknamed “The Thing.” After detonation, an explosion occurred with a power equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT. The date of this test is considered the beginning of the atomic era. (Photo: Wikicommons)
Challenge Name: Mike
Date: October 31, 1952
Location: Elugelab Island ("Flora"), Enewate Atoll
Power: 10.4 megatons
The device detonated during Mike's test, called the "sausage", was the first true megaton-class "hydrogen" bomb. The mushroom cloud reached a height of 41 km with a diameter of 96 km.
The MET bombing carried out as part of Operation Thipot. It is noteworthy that the MET explosion was comparable in power to the Fat Man plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki. April 15, 1955, 22 kt. (Wikimedia)
One of the most powerful explosions of a thermonuclear hydrogen bomb on the US account is Operation Castle Bravo. The charge power was 10 megatons. The explosion took place on March 1, 1954 at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. (Wikimedia)
Operation Castle Romeo was one of the most powerful thermonuclear bomb explosions carried out by the United States. Bikini Atoll, March 27, 1954, 11 megatons. (Wikimedia)
Baker explosion, showing the white surface of the water disturbed by the air shock wave, and the top of the hollow column of spray that formed the hemispherical Wilson cloud. In the background is the shore of Bikini Atoll, July 1946. (Wikimedia)
The explosion of the American thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb “Mike” with a power of 10.4 megatons. November 1, 1952. (Wikimedia)
Operation Greenhouse was the fifth series of American nuclear tests and the second of them in 1951. The operation tested nuclear warhead designs using nuclear fusion to increase energy output. In addition, the impact of the explosion on structures, including residential buildings, factory buildings and bunkers, was studied. The operation was carried out at the Pacific nuclear test site. All devices were detonated on high metal towers, simulating an air explosion. George explosion, 225 kilotons, May 9, 1951. (Wikimedia)
A mushroom cloud with a column of water instead of a dust stalk. To the right, a hole is visible on the pillar: the battleship Arkansas covered the emission of splashes. Baker test, charge power - 23 kilotons of TNT, July 25, 1946. (Wikimedia)
200 meter cloud over Frenchman Flat after the MET explosion as part of Operation Teapot, April 15, 1955, 22 kt. This projectile had a rare uranium-233 core. (Wikimedia)
The crater was formed when a 100-kiloton blast wave was blasted beneath 635 feet of desert on July 6, 1962, displacing 12 million tons of earth. 
Time: 0s. Distance: 0m. Initiation of a nuclear detonator explosion.
Time: 0.0000001s. Distance: 0m Temperature: up to 100 million °C. The beginning and course of nuclear and thermonuclear reactions in a charge. With its explosion, a nuclear detonator creates conditions for the onset of thermonuclear reactions: the thermonuclear combustion zone passes through a shock wave in the charge substance at a speed of the order of 5000 km/s (106 - 107 m/s). About 90% of the neutrons released during the reactions are absorbed by the bomb substance, the remaining 10% are emitted out.
Time: 10−7c. Distance: 0m. Up to 80% or more of the energy of the reacting substance is transformed and released in the form of soft X-ray and hard UV radiation with enormous energy. The X-ray radiation generates a heat wave that heats the bomb, exits and begins to heat the surrounding air.
Time:< 10−7c. Расстояние: 2м Temperature: 30 million°C. The end of the reaction, the beginning of the dispersion of the bomb substance. The bomb immediately disappears from view and in its place a bright luminous sphere (fireball) appears, masking the dispersion of the charge. The growth rate of the sphere in the first meters is close to the speed of light. The density of the substance here drops to 1% of the density of the surrounding air in 0.01 seconds; the temperature drops to 7-8 thousand °C in 2.6 seconds, is held for ~5 seconds and further decreases with the rise of the fiery sphere; After 2-3 seconds the pressure drops to slightly below atmospheric pressure.
Time: 1.1x10−7s. Distance: 10m Temperature: 6 million°C. The expansion of the visible sphere to ~10 m occurs due to the glow of ionized air under X-ray radiation from nuclear reactions, and then through radiative diffusion of the heated air itself. The energy of radiation quanta leaving the thermonuclear charge is such that their free path before being captured by air particles is about 10 m and is initially comparable to the size of a sphere; photons quickly run around the entire sphere, averaging its temperature and fly out of it at the speed of light, ionizing more and more layers of air, hence the same temperature and near-light growth rate. Further, from capture to capture, the photons lose energy and their travel distance decreases, the growth of the sphere slows down.
Time: 1.4x10−7s. Distance: 16m Temperature: 4 million°C. In general, from 10−7 to 0.08 seconds, the 1st phase of the sphere’s glow occurs with a rapid drop in temperature and the release of ~1% of radiation energy, mostly in the form of UV rays and bright light radiation, which can damage the vision of a distant observer without education skin burns. The illumination of the earth's surface at these moments at distances of up to tens of kilometers can be a hundred or more times greater than the sun.
Time: 1.7x10−7s. Distance: 21m Temperature: 3 million°C. Bomb vapors in the form of clubs, dense clots and jets of plasma, like a piston, compress the air in front of them and form a shock wave inside the sphere - an internal shock wave, which differs from an ordinary shock wave in non-adiabatic, almost isothermal properties and at the same pressures several times higher density: shock-compressing the air immediately radiates most of the energy through the ball, which is still transparent to radiation.
In the first tens of meters, the surrounding objects, before the fire sphere hits them, due to its too high speed, do not have time to react in any way - they even practically do not heat up, and once inside the sphere under the flow of radiation they evaporate instantly.
Temperature: 2 million°C. Speed 1000 km/s. As the sphere grows and the temperature drops, the energy and flux density of photons decrease and their range (on the order of a meter) is no longer enough for near-light speeds of expansion of the fire front. The heated volume of air began to expand and a flow of its particles was formed from the center of the explosion. When the air is still at the boundary of the sphere, the heat wave slows down. The expanding heated air inside the sphere collides with the stationary air at its border and somewhere starting from 36-37 m a wave of increasing density appears - the future external air shock wave; Before this, the wave did not have time to appear due to the enormous growth rate of the light sphere.
Time: 0.000001s. Distance: 34m Temperature: 2 million°C. The internal shock and vapors of the bomb are located in a layer 8-12 m from the explosion site, the pressure peak is up to 17,000 MPa at a distance of 10.5 m, the density is ~ 4 times the density of air, the speed is ~ 100 km/s. Hot air region: pressure at the boundary 2,500 MPa, inside the region up to 5000 MPa, particle speed up to 16 km/s. The substance of the bomb vapor begins to lag behind the internals. jump as more and more air in it is drawn into motion. Dense clots and jets maintain speed.
Time: 0.000034s. Distance: 42m Temperature: 1 million°C. Conditions at the epicenter of the explosion of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb (400 kt at a height of 30 m), which created a crater about 50 m in diameter and 8 m deep. 15 m from the epicenter or 5-6 m from the base of the tower with a charge there was a reinforced concrete bunker with walls 2 m thick. For placing scientific equipment on top, covered with a large mound of earth 8 m thick, destroyed.
Temperature: 600 thousand °C. From this moment, the nature of the shock wave ceases to depend on the initial conditions of a nuclear explosion and approaches the typical one for a strong explosion in the air, i.e. Such wave parameters could be observed during the explosion of a large mass of conventional explosives.
Time: 0.0036s. Distance: 60m Temperature: 600 thousand °C. The internal shock, having passed the entire isothermal sphere, catches up and merges with the external one, increasing its density and forming the so-called. a strong shock is a single shock wave front. The density of matter in the sphere drops to 1/3 atmospheric.
Time: 0.014s. Distance: 110m Temperature: 400 thousand°C. A similar shock wave at the epicenter of the explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb with a power of 22 kt at a height of 30 m generated a seismic shift that destroyed the imitation of metro tunnels with various types of fastening at depths of 10 and 20 m. 30 m, animals in the tunnels at depths of 10, 20 and 30 m died . An inconspicuous saucer-shaped depression with a diameter of about 100 m appeared on the surface. Similar conditions were at the epicenter of the Trinity explosion of 21 kt at an altitude of 30 m; a crater with a diameter of 80 m and a depth of 2 m was formed.
Time: 0.004s. Distance: 135m
Temperature: 300 thousand°C. The maximum height of the air explosion is 1 Mt to form a noticeable crater in the ground. The front of the shock wave is distorted by the impacts of bomb vapor clumps:
Time: 0.007s. Distance: 190m Temperature: 200 thousand°C. On a smooth and seemingly shiny front, the beat. waves form large blisters and bright spots (the sphere seems to be boiling). The density of matter in an isothermal sphere with a diameter of ~150 m drops below 10% of the atmospheric one.
Non-massive objects evaporate a few meters before the arrival of fire. spheres (“Rope tricks”); the human body on the side of the explosion will have time to char, and will completely evaporate with the arrival of the shock wave.
Time: 0.01s. Distance: 214m Temperature: 200 thousand°C. A similar air shock wave of the first Soviet atomic bomb at a distance of 60 m (52 m from the epicenter) destroyed the heads of the shafts leading into imitation subway tunnels under the epicenter (see above). Each head was a powerful reinforced concrete casemate, covered with a small earth embankment. The fragments of the heads fell into the trunks, the latter were then crushed by the seismic wave.
Time: 0.015s. Distance: 250m Temperature: 170 thousand°C. The shock wave greatly destroys rocks. The speed of the shock wave is higher than the speed of sound in metal: the theoretical limit of strength of the entrance door to the shelter; the tank flattens and burns.
Time: 0.028s. Distance: 320m Temperature: 110 thousand°C. The person is dispelled by a stream of plasma (shock wave speed = speed of sound in the bones, the body collapses into dust and immediately burns). Complete destruction of the most durable above-ground structures.
Time: 0.073s. Distance: 400m Temperature: 80 thousand°C. Irregularities on the sphere disappear. The density of the substance drops in the center to almost 1%, and at the edge of the isotherms. spheres with a diameter of ~320 m to 2% atmospheric. At this distance, within 1.5 s, heating to 30,000 °C and dropping to 7000 °C, ~5 s holding at a level of ~6,500 °C and decreasing the temperature in 10-20 s as the fireball moves upward.
Time: 0.079s. Distance: 435m Temperature: 110 thousand°C. Complete destruction of highways with asphalt and concrete surfaces. Temperature minimum of shock wave radiation, end of the 1st phase of glow. A metro-type shelter, lined with cast iron tubes and monolithic reinforced concrete and buried to 18 m, is calculated to be able to withstand an explosion (40 kt) without destruction at a height of 30 m at a minimum distance of 150 m (shock wave pressure of the order of 5 MPa), 38 kt of RDS have been tested. 2 at a distance of 235 m (pressure ~1.5 MPa), received minor deformations and damage. At temperatures in the compression front below 80 thousand °C, new NO2 molecules no longer appear, the layer of nitrogen dioxide gradually disappears and ceases to screen internal radiation. The impact sphere gradually becomes transparent and through it, as through darkened glass, clouds of bomb vapor and the isothermal sphere are visible for some time; In general, the fire sphere is similar to fireworks. Then, as transparency increases, the intensity of the radiation increases and the details of the sphere, as if flaring up again, become invisible. The process is reminiscent of the end of the era of recombination and the birth of light in the Universe several hundred thousand years after the Big Bang.
Time: 0.1s. Distance: 530m Temperature: 70 thousand°C. When the shock wave front separates and moves forward from the boundary of the fire sphere, its growth rate noticeably decreases. The 2nd phase of the glow begins, less intense, but two orders of magnitude longer, with the release of 99% of the explosion radiation energy mainly in the visible and IR spectrum. In the first hundred meters, a person does not have time to see the explosion and dies without suffering (human visual reaction time is 0.1 - 0.3 s, reaction time to a burn is 0.15 - 0.2 s).
Time: 0.15s. Distance: 580m Temperature: 65 thousand°C. Radiation ~100,000 Gy. A person is left with charred fragments of bones (the speed of the shock wave is on the order of the speed of sound in soft tissues: a hydrodynamic shock that destroys cells and tissue passes through the body).
Time: 0.25s. Distance: 630m Temperature: 50 thousand°C. Penetrating radiation ~40,000 Gy. A person turns into charred wreckage: the shock wave causes traumatic amputation, which occurs in a fraction of a second. the fiery sphere chars the remains. Complete destruction of the tank. Complete destruction of underground cable lines, water pipelines, gas pipelines, sewers, inspection wells. Destruction of underground reinforced concrete pipes with a diameter of 1.5 m and a wall thickness of 0.2 m. Destruction of the arched concrete dam of a hydroelectric power station. Severe destruction of long-term reinforced concrete fortifications. Minor damage to underground metro structures.
Time: 0.4s. Distance: 800m Temperature: 40 thousand°C. Heating objects up to 3000 °C. Penetrating radiation ~20,000 Gy. Complete destruction of all protective structures civil defense(shelters) destruction of protective devices at metro entrances. Destruction of the gravity concrete dam of a hydroelectric power station, bunkers become ineffective at a distance of 250 m.
Time: 0.73s. Distance: 1200m Temperature: 17 thousand°C. Radiation ~5000 Gy. With an explosion height of 1200 m, the heating of the ground air at the epicenter before the arrival of the shock. waves up to 900°C. Man - 100% death from the shock wave. Destruction of shelters designed for 200 kPa (type A-III or class 3). Complete destruction of prefabricated reinforced concrete bunkers at a distance of 500 m under the conditions of a ground explosion. Complete destruction of the railway tracks. The maximum brightness of the second phase of the sphere's glow by this time it had released ~20% of light energy
Time: 1.4s. Distance: 1600m Temperature: 12 thousand°C. Heating objects up to 200°C. Radiation 500 Gy. Numerous 3-4 degree burns up to 60-90% of the body surface, severe radiation damage combined with other injuries, mortality immediately or up to 100% in the first day. The tank is thrown back ~10 m and damaged. Complete destruction of metal and reinforced concrete bridges with a span of 30 - 50 m.
Time: 1.6s. Distance: 1750m Temperature: 10 thousand°C. Radiation approx. 70 Gr. The tank crew dies within 2-3 weeks from extremely severe radiation sickness. Complete destruction of concrete, reinforced concrete monolithic (low-rise) and earthquake-resistant buildings of 0.2 MPa, built-in and free-standing shelters designed for 100 kPa (type A-IV or class 4), shelters in the basements of multi-story buildings.
Time: 1.9c. Distance: 1900m Temperature: 9 thousand °C Dangerous damage to a person by the shock wave and throw up to 300 m with an initial speed of up to 400 km/h, of which 100-150 m (0.3-0.5 path) is free flight, and the remaining distance is numerous ricochets about the ground. Radiation of about 50 Gy is a fulminant form of radiation sickness[, 100% mortality within 6-9 days. Destruction of built-in shelters designed for 50 kPa. Severe destruction of earthquake-resistant buildings. Pressure 0.12 MPa and higher - all urban buildings are dense and discharged and turn into solid rubble (individual rubbles merge into one solid one), the height of the rubble can be 3-4 m. The fire sphere at this time reaches its maximum size (D ~ 2 km), crushed from below by the shock wave reflected from the ground and begins to rise; the isothermal sphere in it collapses, forming a rapid upward flow at the epicenter - the future leg of the mushroom.
Time: 2.6s. Distance: 2200m Temperature: 7.5 thousand°C. Severe injuries to a person by a shock wave. Radiation ~10 Gy is an extremely severe acute radiation sickness, with a combination of injuries, 100% mortality within 1-2 weeks. Safe stay in a tank, in a fortified basement with a reinforced reinforced concrete ceiling and in most G.O. shelters. Destruction of trucks. 0.1 MPa - design pressure of a shock wave for the design of structures and protective devices of underground structures of shallow subway lines.
Time: 3.8c. Distance: 2800m Temperature: 7.5 thousand°C. Radiation of 1 Gy - in peaceful conditions and timely treatment, a non-hazardous radiation injury, but with the unsanitary conditions and severe physical and psychological stress accompanying the disaster, lack of medical care, nutrition and normal rest, up to half of the victims die only from radiation and concomitant diseases, and in terms of the amount of damage ( plus injuries and burns) much more. Pressure less than 0.1 MPa - urban areas with dense buildings turn into solid rubble. Complete destruction of basements without reinforcement of structures 0.075 MPa. The average destruction of earthquake-resistant buildings is 0.08-0.12 MPa. Severe damage to prefabricated reinforced concrete bunkers. Detonation of pyrotechnics.
Time: 6c. Distance: 3600m Temperature: 4.5 thousand°C. Moderate damage to a person by a shock wave. Radiation ~0.05 Gy - the dose is not dangerous. People and objects leave “shadows” on the asphalt. Complete destruction of administrative multi-storey frame (office) buildings (0.05-0.06 MPa), shelters of the simplest type; severe and complete destruction of massive industrial structures. Almost all urban buildings were destroyed with the formation of local rubble (one house - one rubble). Complete destruction of passenger cars, complete destruction of the forest. An electromagnetic pulse of ~3 kV/m affects insensitive electrical appliances. The destruction is similar to an earthquake 10 points. The sphere turned into a fiery dome, like a bubble floating up, carrying with it a column of smoke and dust from the surface of the earth: a characteristic explosive mushroom grows with an initial vertical speed of up to 500 km/h. Wind speed at the surface to the epicenter is ~100 km/h.
Time: 10c. Distance: 6400m Temperature: 2 thousand°C. The end of the effective time of the second glow phase, ~80% of the total energy of light radiation has been released. The remaining 20% light up harmlessly for about a minute with a continuous decrease in intensity, gradually being lost in the clouds. Destruction of the simplest type of shelter (0.035-0.05 MPa). In the first kilometers, a person will not hear the roar of the explosion due to hearing damage from the shock wave. A person is thrown back by a shock wave of ~20 m with an initial speed of ~30 km/h. Complete destruction of multi-storey brick houses, panel houses, severe destruction of warehouses, moderate destruction of frame administrative buildings. The destruction is similar to a magnitude 8 earthquake. Safe in almost any basement.
The glow of the fiery dome ceases to be dangerous, it turns into a fiery cloud, growing in volume as it rises; hot gases in the cloud begin to rotate in a torus-shaped vortex; the hot products of the explosion are localized in the upper part of the cloud. The flow of dusty air in the column moves twice as fast as the rise of the “mushroom”, overtakes the cloud, passes through, diverges and, as it were, is wound around it, as if on a ring-shaped coil.
Time: 15c. Distance: 7500m. Light damage to a person by a shock wave. Third degree burns to exposed parts of the body. Complete destruction of wooden houses, severe destruction of brick multi-storey buildings 0.02-0.03 MPa, average destruction of brick warehouses, multi-storey reinforced concrete, panel houses; weak destruction of administrative buildings 0.02-0.03 MPa, massive industrial structures. Cars catching fire. The destruction is similar to a magnitude 6 earthquake or a magnitude 12 hurricane. up to 39 m/s. The “mushroom” has grown up to 3 km above the center of the explosion (the true height of the mushroom is greater than the height of the warhead explosion, about 1.5 km), it has a “skirt” of condensation of water vapor in a stream of warm air, fanned by the cloud into the cold upper layers atmosphere.
Time: 35c. Distance: 14km. Second degree burns. Paper and dark tarpaulin ignite. A zone of continuous fires; in areas of densely combustible buildings, a fire storm and tornado are possible (Hiroshima, “Operation Gomorrah”). Weak destruction of panel buildings. Disablement of aircraft and missiles. The destruction is similar to an earthquake of 4-5 points, a storm of 9-11 points V = 21 - 28.5 m/s. The “mushroom” has grown to ~5 km; the fiery cloud is shining more and more faintly.
Time: 1 min. Distance: 22km. First degree burns - death is possible in beachwear. Destruction of reinforced glazing. Uprooting large trees. Zone of individual fires. The “mushroom” has risen to 7.5 km, the cloud stops emitting light and now has a reddish tint due to the nitrogen oxides it contains, which will make it stand out sharply among other clouds.
Time: 1.5 min. Distance: 35km. The maximum radius of damage to unprotected sensitive electrical equipment by an electromagnetic pulse. Almost all the regular glass and some of the reinforced glass in the windows were broken - especially in the frosty winter, plus the possibility of cuts from flying fragments. The “Mushroom” rose to 10 km, the ascent speed was ~220 km/h. Above the tropopause, the cloud develops predominantly in width.
Time: 4min. Distance: 85km. The flash looks like a large, unnaturally bright Sun near the horizon and can cause a burn to the retina and a rush of heat to the face. The shock wave arriving after 4 minutes can still knock a person off his feet and break individual glass in the windows. “Mushroom” rose over 16 km, ascent speed ~140 km/h
Time: 8 min. Distance: 145km. The flash is not visible beyond the horizon, but a strong glow and a fiery cloud are visible. The total height of the “mushroom” is up to 24 km, the cloud is 9 km in height and 20-30 km in diameter, with its widest part it “rests” on the tropopause. The mushroom cloud has grown to its maximum size and is observed for about an hour or more until it is dissipated by the winds and mixed with normal clouds. Precipitation with relatively large particles falls from the cloud within 10-20 hours, forming a nearby radioactive trace.
Time: 5.5-13 hours Distance: 300-500 km. The far border of the moderately infected zone (zone A). The radiation level at the outer boundary of the zone is 0.08 Gy/h; total radiation dose 0.4-4 Gy.
Time: ~10 months. The effective time of half-deposition of radioactive substances for the lower layers of the tropical stratosphere (up to 21 km); fallout also occurs mainly in the middle latitudes in the same hemisphere where the explosion occurred.
Monument to the first test of the Trinity atomic bomb. This monument was erected at the White Sands test site in 1965, 20 years after the Trinity test. The monument's plaque reads: "The world's first atomic bomb test took place at this site on July 16, 1945." One more memorial plaque, set below, indicates that this place has received national status historical monument. (Photo: Wikicommons)