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A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs , a more compact size, a lower mass, or a combination of these benefits.
Castle Romeo was the code name given to one of the tests in the Operation Castle series of U.S. nuclear tests. It was the first test of the TX-17 thermonuclear weapon, the first deployed thermonuclear bomb. It was detonated on 26 March 1954, at Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands, on a barge moored in the middle of the crater from the Castle ...
A nuclear weapon [a] is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
The yields of atomic bombs and thermonuclear are typically measured in different amounts. Thermonuclear bombs can be hundreds or thousands of times stronger than their atomic counterparts. Due to this, thermonuclear bombs' yields are usually expressed in megatons which is about the equivalent of 1,000,000 tons of TNT.
Internal nuclear components of the B61 bomb. The bomb was assembled at the Burlington AEC Plant and Pantex. A Sandia document on the dates of the development phases of the US nuclear stockpile describes the B61-3 as an "improved Mod 2 w/IHE" and the B61-4 as "same as Mod 3 ex. Hi-Y". [22] The B61 Mod 3 and 4 bombs do not contain beryllium. [30]
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.
Mark 41 thermonuclear bomb casing at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. The B-41 (also known as Mk-41) was a thermonuclear weapon deployed by the United States Strategic Air Command in the early 1960s. It was the most powerful nuclear bomb ever developed by the United States, with a maximum yield of 25 megatons of TNT (100 ...
The Mark 39 design was a thermonuclear bomb and had a yield of 3.8 megatons. [1] It weighed 6,500–6,750 pounds (2,950–3,060 kilograms), [2] and was about 11 feet, 8 inches long (3.556 meters) [2] with a diameter of 35 inches (89 cm). [2] The design is an improved Mark 15 nuclear bomb design (the TX-15-X3 design and Mark 39 Mod 0 were the ...