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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.
Kinglet was a boosted fission primary used in several American thermonuclear weapons. [1]The W55 warhead for the UUM-44 SUBROC anti-submarine missile and the W58 warhead for Polaris A-3 were designed to use Kinglet, while the W47 warhead for Polaris A-1/A-2 were retrofitted with Kinglet to overcome the technical issues with the Robin primary the W47 was initially deployed with.
Conducted on May 25, 1951, Item was the first test of an actual boosted fission weapon, nearly doubling the normal yield of a similar non-boosted weapon. In this test, deuterium-tritium (D-T) gas was injected into the enriched uranium core of a nuclear fission bomb.
This is known as a boosted fission weapon. [5] If a fission device designed for boosting is tested without the boost gas, a yield in the sub-kiloton range may indicate a successful test that the device's implosion and primary fission stages are working as designed, though this does not test the boosting process itself.
In a boosted fission weapon or a thermonuclear weapon, the 14.1-megaelectronvolt (2.26 pJ) neutrons produced by a deuterium-tritium reaction can remain sufficiently energetic to fission uranium-238 even after three collisions with deuterium, but the 2.45-megaelectronvolt (0.393 pJ) ones produced by deuterium-deuterium fusion no longer have ...
According to researcher Chuck Hansen, the W34 Python was a gas-boosted fission primary used in several designs of American thermonuclear weapons.. Hansen's research indicates that the W34 Python primary was used in the US B28 nuclear bomb, W28, W40, and W49, and as a boosted fission warhead without a thermonuclear second stage in several other weapons.
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 ...
Even as late as 1954, no boosted weapon had entered into the nuclear-weapons stockpile, and the only use for the Greenhouse Item nuclear test had been for its research results. The "Booster" device was detonated at 6:17 am on May 25, 1951, from a 200-foot-tall (61 m) shot tower on the island of Engebi in the Enewetok Atoll, and its fusion fuel ...