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Log–log plot comparing the yield (in kilotonnes) and mass (in kilograms) of various nuclear weapons developed by the United States.. The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy released such as blast, thermal, and nuclear radiation, when that particular nuclear weapon is detonated, usually expressed as a TNT equivalent (the standardized equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene ...
Nuclear fission splits a heavy nucleus such as uranium or plutonium into two lighter nuclei, which are called fission products. Yield refers to the fraction of a fission product produced per fission. Yield can be broken down by: Individual isotope; Chemical element spanning several isotopes of different mass number but same atomic number.
China developed its first nuclear weapon in 1964; its nuclear stockpile increased until the early 1980s, when it stabilized at between 200 and 260. [1] India became a nuclear power in 1974, while Pakistan developed its first nuclear weapon in the 1980s. [1] [21] India and Pakistan currently have around one hundred nuclear weapons each. [19]
Data obtained from this test, and others, culminated in the eventual deployment of the highest-yielding US nuclear weapon known, and the highest yield-to-weight weapon ever made, a three-stage thermonuclear weapon with a maximum "dirty" yield of 25 megatons, designated as the B41 nuclear bomb, which was to be carried by U.S. Air Force bombers ...
In total nuclear test megatonnage, from 1945 to 1992, 520 atmospheric nuclear explosions (including eight underwater) were conducted with a total yield of 545 megatons, [21] with a peak occurring in 1961–1962, when 340 megatons were detonated in the atmosphere by the United States and Soviet Union, [22] while the estimated number of ...
The effects of an underground nuclear test may vary according to factors including the depth and yield of the explosion, as well as the nature of the surrounding rock. [25] If the test is conducted at sufficient depth, the test is said to be contained , with no venting of gases or other contaminants to the environment. [ 25 ]
"Compared with other nuclear events: The Chernobyl explosion put 400 times more radioactive material into the Earth's atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima; atomic weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s all together are estimated to have put some 100 to 1,000 times more radioactive material into the atmosphere than the ...
Excitation function (a.k.a. yield curve) is a term used in nuclear physics to describe a graphical plot of the yield of a radionuclide or reaction channel as a function of the bombarding projectile energy or the calculated excitation energy of the compound nucleus. [1] The yield is the measured intensity of a particular transition. [2]