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The Castle Bravo device was housed in a cylinder that weighed 23,500 pounds (10,700 kg) and measured 179.5 inches (456 cm) in length and 53.9 inches (137 cm) in diameter. [ 3 ] The primary device was a COBRA deuterium-tritium gas-boosted atomic bomb made by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory , a very compact MK 7 device.
Comparative fireball radii for a selection of nuclear weapons. [citation needed] Contrary to the image, which may depict the initial fireball radius, the maximum average fireball radius of Castle Bravo, a 15-megatonne yield surface burst, is 3.3 to 3.7 km (2.1 to 2.3 mi), [6] [7] and not the 1.42 km displayed in the image.
English: A simple graphic showing comparative nuclear fireball radii for a number of different tests and warheads. From largest to smallest, the diameter are: Tsar Bomba — 50 Mt — 4.6 km (2.9 mi) Castle Bravo — 15 Mt — 2.84 km (1.76 mi) W59 warhead (Minuteman missile) — 1 Mt — .96 km (0.60 mi)
The Castle Bravo shot of 1 March 1954, at Bikini Atoll, was the first test of a deployable (solid fuel) thermonuclear weapon, and also (accidentally) [citation needed] the largest weapon ever tested by the United States (15 megatons). It was also the single largest U.S. radiological accident in connection with nuclear testing.
But as was discovered in the first test of this type of device, Castle Bravo, when lithium-7 is present, one also has some amounts of the following two net reactions: 7 Li + 1 n → 3 T + 4 He + 1 n 7 Li + 2 H → 2 4 He + 1 n + 15.123 MeV. Most lithium is 7 Li, and this gave Castle Bravo a yield 2.5 times larger than expected. [16]
The Tsar Bomba far surpassed the largest explosion the United States has ever conducted - a 15-megaton "Castle Bravo" hydrogen bomb detonated on Bikini Atoll in 1954. (Reporting by Maria Vasilyeva ...
The second series of tests in 1954 was codenamed Operation Castle. The first detonation was Castle Bravo, which tested a new design utilizing a dry-fuel thermonuclear bomb. It was detonated at dawn on March 1, 1954. Scientists miscalculated: the 15 Mt of TNT nuclear explosion far exceeded the expected yield of 4–8 Mt of TNT (6 predicted). [6]
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