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A boosted fission weapon usually refers to a type of nuclear bomb that uses a small amount of fusion fuel to increase the rate, and thus yield, of a fission reaction. The neutrons released by the fusion reactions add to the neutrons released due to fission, allowing for more neutron-induced fission reactions to take place.
Before Ivy Mike, Operation Greenhouse in 1951 was the first American nuclear test series to test principles that led to the development of thermonuclear weapons. Sufficient fission was achieved to boost the associated fusion device, and enough was learned to achieve a full-scale device within a year.
Boosted fission weapons increase yield beyond that of the implosion design, by using small quantities of fusion fuel to enhance the fission chain reaction. Boosting can more than double the weapon's fission energy yield. Staged thermonuclear weapons are arrangements of two or more "stages", most usually two. The first stage is normally a ...
The W40 nuclear warhead was an American fusion-boosted fission nuclear warhead developed in the late 1950s and which saw service from 1959 to 1972.. The W40 design was reportedly the common Python primary or fission core used by the US B28 nuclear bomb, W28 nuclear warhead, and W49 nuclear warhead.
Orange Herald was a fusion boosted British fission nuclear weapon (called a core-boosted device by the British), comprising a U-235 core containing a small amount of lithium deuteride . [1] [2] 'Herald' was suitable for mounting on a missile, utilizing 117 kg of U-235. However, Britain's annual production of U-235 was only 120 kg at this time ...
RDS-7, a backup for the RDS-6, the RDS-7 was a 500 kiloton all fission bomb comparable to the US Mk-18, development dropped after success of the RDS-6S; RDS-27, 250 kiloton bomb, a 'boosted' fission bomb tested 6 November 1955. RDS-37, 3 megaton bomb, the first Soviet two-stage hydrogen bomb, tested 22 November 1955
In a thermonuclear weapon such as the W88, nuclear fission in the primary stage causes nuclear fusion in the secondary stage, which results in the main explosion. Although the weapon employs fusion in the secondary, most of the explosive yield comes from fission of nuclear material in the primary, secondary, and casing. [8]
There are other types of nuclear weapons as well. For example, a boosted fission weapon is a fission bomb that increases its explosive yield through a small number of fusion reactions, but it is not a fusion bomb. In the boosted bomb, the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions serve primarily to increase the efficiency of the fission bomb.