Was the Teller's mistake with the "Castle Bravo" test caused because the bomb was warm?
"Castle Bravo" was 15 megaton thermonuclear test in Bikini-atoll 1954 during operation "Castle", what was first attempt to build the aircraft deliverable thermonuclear weapons. The nuclear devices predicted power was 10 megaton, but it released the higher load of energy, than it should, and that caused injuries and destruction on the entire Bikini atoll.
That detonation was the first time when in the hydrogen bombs were used the lithium booster, what mission was to work as the fusion stage. Earlier hydrogen bomb tests "Greenhouse George" and "Ivy Mike", what was the first full-scale thermonuclear or fusion device test, and the power of that detonation was10 megaton.
The problem with "Ivy Mike" was that the device used cryogenic or low-temperature fusion stage, what based liquid helium 3 (or deuterium-tritium) fusion stage, what was ignited by using fission bomb. That kind of bombs was difficult to handle and store because the cryogenic fusion stage needs extreme low temperature.
So Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam created the idea to use lithium to create the thermonuclear explosion. If lithium would work as the booster the new high-yield thermonuclear weapons could store in the room temperature. And that thing interested the military forces in that time when the power of the nuclear weapon was the most important thing in the nuclear plans.
But when the "Bravo" or "Schrimpf" what was the name of that hydrogen bomb was detonated, the power of that device was 1,5 times more powerful, than it should be. The radioactive ash flew across the Marshall-islands. And after the year's people still asks, why those famous scientists made that error? The answer would be simpler than people will realize.
The bomb was warm, which means that the atoms in the launching capsule will oscillate, and that movement in the lithium caused that the greater mass of the thermonuclear stage started to melt together when the nuclear bomb at the next of the device is exploding. That means the nuclear device would give very high energy output, and that thing increased the power of the device.
But the disaster could happen also because of the auxiliary fission would happen in a larger area than in the previous nuclear devices. And that would increase the speed of fusion, what releases more energy than predicted.
Structure of that bomb was simple. The fusion material was in the tube, what was around the natural uranium (U-238) stick. And when the detonator launched, the system would give extreme high energy burst, because the natural uranium transforms to the plutonium 239 (PU-239) and starts the fission inside the fusion material. Uranium-238 would catch the neutron and then transforms to plutonium-239. That thing hoped to help the ignition of the fusion material.
If the fission in that stick would limit in the core of uranium, that would cause that the transformation of uranium 238 to plutonium 239 would happen in the longer area than if the entire stick would start to transform, and that causes that the critical mass will reach in the larger area than Teller and Ulam predicted, what caused rougher reaction than it should be. This might cause one of the worst nuclear disasters in the history of nuclear tests.
https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Castle.html
"Castle Bravo" was 15 megaton thermonuclear test in Bikini-atoll 1954 during operation "Castle", what was first attempt to build the aircraft deliverable thermonuclear weapons. The nuclear devices predicted power was 10 megaton, but it released the higher load of energy, than it should, and that caused injuries and destruction on the entire Bikini atoll.
That detonation was the first time when in the hydrogen bombs were used the lithium booster, what mission was to work as the fusion stage. Earlier hydrogen bomb tests "Greenhouse George" and "Ivy Mike", what was the first full-scale thermonuclear or fusion device test, and the power of that detonation was10 megaton.
The problem with "Ivy Mike" was that the device used cryogenic or low-temperature fusion stage, what based liquid helium 3 (or deuterium-tritium) fusion stage, what was ignited by using fission bomb. That kind of bombs was difficult to handle and store because the cryogenic fusion stage needs extreme low temperature.
So Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam created the idea to use lithium to create the thermonuclear explosion. If lithium would work as the booster the new high-yield thermonuclear weapons could store in the room temperature. And that thing interested the military forces in that time when the power of the nuclear weapon was the most important thing in the nuclear plans.
But when the "Bravo" or "Schrimpf" what was the name of that hydrogen bomb was detonated, the power of that device was 1,5 times more powerful, than it should be. The radioactive ash flew across the Marshall-islands. And after the year's people still asks, why those famous scientists made that error? The answer would be simpler than people will realize.
The bomb was warm, which means that the atoms in the launching capsule will oscillate, and that movement in the lithium caused that the greater mass of the thermonuclear stage started to melt together when the nuclear bomb at the next of the device is exploding. That means the nuclear device would give very high energy output, and that thing increased the power of the device.
But the disaster could happen also because of the auxiliary fission would happen in a larger area than in the previous nuclear devices. And that would increase the speed of fusion, what releases more energy than predicted.
Structure of that bomb was simple. The fusion material was in the tube, what was around the natural uranium (U-238) stick. And when the detonator launched, the system would give extreme high energy burst, because the natural uranium transforms to the plutonium 239 (PU-239) and starts the fission inside the fusion material. Uranium-238 would catch the neutron and then transforms to plutonium-239. That thing hoped to help the ignition of the fusion material.
If the fission in that stick would limit in the core of uranium, that would cause that the transformation of uranium 238 to plutonium 239 would happen in the longer area than if the entire stick would start to transform, and that causes that the critical mass will reach in the larger area than Teller and Ulam predicted, what caused rougher reaction than it should be. This might cause one of the worst nuclear disasters in the history of nuclear tests.
https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Castle.html
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