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    Question ID:   18214         Current Version: 1
Question: What makes up an atomic bomb and how does the bomb work?
Category: Science > Chemistry
Keywords: make up, material, atomic bomb, work
Type: what
Rating:(0 ratings)    Views: 66    Discussions: 0   In Watch Lists: 1  

 
    Answer:

The explosive material consists of several pieces of uranium or plutonium metal, totaling maybe 25-100 pounds.

  • For uranium, it must be "enriched" (a very difficult process) to "weapons-grade", about 90% U-235 versus about 0.5% for natural uranium and 3% for "reactor-grade."
  • Plutonium can only be made in nuclear reactors, and then must be carefully separated from the very radioactive reactor fuel.

When the pieces of uranium or plutonium in the bomb are brought together, they explode immediately. So a lot of the bomb consists of apparatus to get the pieces together smoothly and quickly when the bomb is supposed to go off.

The most primitive design, the Hiroshima bomb, just had a cannon barrel that fired a slug of uranium into a waiting bowl of uranium. Modern bombs use a hollow ball of carefully shaped TNT charges to squeeze together a smaller ball of uranium or plutonium that's in separate sections like a grapefruit. By squeezing extra hard you compress the material and get even more bang. The TNT charges are set off by electrical currents and so they are all wired together to a timer so they go off at the right time. Then there is a trigger device that starts the timer. It could be a something that detects a shock (when the bomb hits the ground) but usually the bombs are supposed to go off in the air, so it probably detects a certain air pressure (altitude). Presumably it can also be set off by radio command. Finally there is an elaborate arming device that prevents the trigger from going off when it's not supposed to. These seem to work well: A-bombs in planes that crash do not go off, and in fifty years of working with them -- there are maybe 20,000 in the world -- no one has ever seemed to set one off accidentally.

Source: Argonne National Laboratory

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