I.

Introduction

Nuclear Weapons, explosive devices, designed to release nuclear energy on a large scale, used primarily in military applications. The first atomic bomb (or A-bomb), which was tested on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, represented a completely new type of artificial explosive. All explosives prior to that time derived their power from the rapid burning or decomposition of some chemical compound. Such chemical processes release only the energy of the outermost electrons in the atom.

Nuclear explosives, on the other hand, involve energy sources within the core, or nucleus, of the atom. The A-bomb gained its power from the splitting, or fission, of all the atomic nuclei in several kilograms of plutonium. A sphere about the size of a tennis ball produced an explosion equal to 20,000 tons of TNT (see Trinitrotoluene). Nuclear weapons were the first true weapons of mass destruction and their first use in warfare, at the end of World War II, and their subsequent deployment, changed the nature of international relations for all time. This article focuses on how the weapons work, and their effects.

The first nuclear weapons were developed, constructed, and tested by the Manhattan Project, a massive United States enterprise that was established in August 1942 during World War II. Many prominent scientists, including the physicists Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Isador Rabi, and Edward Teller, and the chemist Harold Urey, as well as scientists from Britain, were associated with what was, to date, the world’s biggest scientific project, whose military head was US Army engineer Major General Leslie Groves. The scientific director of the project—which was based at Los Alamos, New Mexico—was physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Work had already started during the Manhattan Project on even more powerful bombs, chiefly to tap the energy of light elements, such as hydrogen. In these bombs the source of energy is the fusion process, in which nuclei of the isotopes of hydrogen combine to form a heavier helium nucleus (see Thermonuclear, or Fusion, Weapons below).

This fusion research, begun largely by Edmund Teller, resulted in the production of bombs that range in power from a fraction of a kiloton (1,000 tons of TNT equivalent) to many megatons (1 million tons of TNT equivalent). Furthermore, the physical size of nuclear bombs was drastically reduced, permitting the development of battlefield nuclear weapons, such as nuclear artillery shells and small missiles that can be fired from portable launchers in the field. This allowed strategists to consider the possibility of waging a limited nuclear war.

After the war, the US Atomic Energy Commission became responsible for the supervision of all nuclear matters in the United States, including weapons research. Although nuclear bombs were originally developed as strategic weapons to be carried by large bombers, such as the B-29 and B-52, from the 1950s nuclear weapons were produced for both strategic and tactical applications. Not only can they be delivered by different types of military aircraft, but rockets and guided missiles of many sizes were built to carry nuclear warheads, to be launched from the ground, the air, or under the sea. Intercontinental ballistic missiles are large rockets capable of carrying multiple warheads for delivery to separate targets thousands of kilometres from launch.

Research in nuclear weapons continues in the United States at Los Alamos; at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, California; in Britain, at Aldermaston; and in Russia, France, and China. Reduction in superpower nuclear forces, as a result of treaties such as the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (START) I and II, has produced a need for labs to apply research to the decommissioning and refitting of weapons.

II.

Fission Weapons

In 1905 the renowned physicist Albert Einstein published his special theory of relativity. According to this theory, the relation between mass and energy is expressed by the equation E = mc², which states that a given mass (m) is associated with an amount of energy (E) equal to this mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light (c). A very small amount of matter is equivalent to a vast amount of energy. For example, 1 kg (2.2 lb) of matter converted completely into energy would be equivalent to the energy released by exploding 22 megatons of TNT.

In 1939, in a series of experiments, the German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann split the uranium atom into two roughly equal parts by bombardment with neutrons. As a result, the Austrian physicist Lise Meitner, with her nephew, Austrian physicist Otto Frisch, identified the process of nuclear fission, which placed the release of atomic energy within reach.

III.

The Chain Reaction

When the uranium nucleus fissions, it breaks up into a pair of nuclear fragments and releases energy. At the same time, the nucleus emits very quickly a number of fast neutrons, the same type of particle that initiated the fission of the uranium nucleus. This makes it possible to achieve a self-sustaining series of nuclear fissions; the neutrons that are emitted in fission produce a chain reaction, with a continuous release of energy.

The light isotope of uranium, uranium-235, is easily split by the fission neutrons and, upon fission, emits an average of about 2.5 neutrons. One neutron per generation of nuclear fissions is necessary to sustain the chain reactions. Others may be lost by escape from the mass of chain-reacting material, or they may be absorbed in impurities or in the heavy uranium isotope, uranium-238, if it is present. Any substance capable of sustaining a fission chain reaction is known as a fissile material.

IV.

Critical Mass

A small sphere of pure fissile material, such as uranium-235, about the size of a golf ball, would not sustain a chain reaction. Too many neutrons escape through the surface area, which is relatively large compared with its volume, and thus are lost to the chain reaction. In a mass of uranium-235 about the size of a tennis ball, however, the number of neutrons lost through the surface is compensated for by the neutrons generated in additional fissions taking place within the sphere.

The minimum amount of fissile material (of a given shape) required to maintain the chain reaction is known as the critical mass. Increasing the size of the sphere produces a supercritical assembly, in which the successive generations of fissions increase very quickly, leading to a possible explosion as a result of the extremely rapid release of a large amount of energy. In an atomic bomb, therefore, a mass of fissile material greater than the critical size must be assembled instantaneously and held together for about a millionth of a second to permit the chain reaction to propagate before the bomb explodes. A heavy material, called a tamper, surrounds the fissile mass and prevents its premature disruption. The tamper also reduces the number of neutrons that escape.

If every atom in 0.5 kg (1s lb) of uranium were to split, the energy produced would equal the explosive power of 9.9 kilotons of TNT. In this hypothetical case, the efficiency of the process would be 100 per cent. In the first A-bomb tests, this kind of efficiency was not approached. Moreover, a 0.5-kg (1s-lb) mass is too small for a critical assembly.

V.

Detonation of Atomic Bombs

A.

Gun Method

Various systems were devised to detonate the prototype atomic bombs. The simplest system is the gun-type weapon, in which a projectile made of fissile material is fired at a target of the same material so that the two weld together into a supercritical assembly. The atomic bomb exploded by the United States over Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945, was a gun-type weapon. It had the energy equivalent of about 13 kilotons of TNT.

B.

Implosion Method

A more complex method, known as implosion, is utilized in a spherically shaped weapon. The outer part of the sphere consists of a layer of closely fitted and specially shaped lenses, which are composed of high explosive and designed to concentrate the blast towards the centre of the bomb. Each segment of the high explosive is equipped with a detonator, which in turn is wired to all other segments. An electrical impulse explodes all the chunks of high explosive simultaneously, resulting in a detonation wave that converges towards the core of the weapon. At the core is a sphere of fissile material, which is compressed by the powerful, inwardly directed pressure, or implosion. The density of the metal is increased, and a supercritical assembly is produced. The Trinity test bomb exploded near Alamogordo, as well as the one dropped by the United States on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945, was of the implosion type. Each was equivalent to about 20 kilotons of TNT.

Regardless of the method used to attain a supercritical assembly, the chain reaction proceeds for about a millionth of a second, liberating vast amounts of heat energy. The extremely fast release of a very large amount of energy in a relatively small volume causes the temperature to rise to tens of millions of degrees. The resulting rapid expansion and vaporization of the bomb material causes the explosion.

VI.

Production of Fissile Material

Much experimentation was necessary to make the production of fissile material practical.

A.

Separation of Uranium Isotopes

The fissile uranium-235 isotope accounts for only 0.7 per cent of natural uranium; the remainder is composed of the heavier uranium-238. No chemical methods suffice to separate uranium-235 from ordinary uranium, because both uranium isotopes are chemically identical. A number of techniques, such as gaseous diffusion, were devised to separate the two, all of which depend in principle on the slight difference in weight between the two types of uranium atoms.

A huge gaseous-diffusion plant was built during World War II at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This plant was enlarged after the war, and two similar plants were built near Paducah, Kentucky, and Portsmouth, Ohio. The feed material for this type of plant consisted of extremely corrosive uranium hexafluoride gas. The gas is pumped against barriers that have many millions of tiny holes, through which the lighter molecules, which contain uranium-235 atoms, pass by diffusion at a slightly greater rate than the heavier molecules, containing uranium-238. After the gas has been cycled through thousands of barriers, known as stages, it is highly enriched in the lighter isotope of uranium. The final product is weapons-grade uranium containing more than 90 per cent uranium-235.

B.

Producing Plutonium

Although the heavy uranium isotope uranium-238 will not sustain a chain reaction, it can be converted into a fissile material by being bombarded with neutrons. This transforms it into a new species of element. When the uranium-238 atom captures a neutron in its nucleus, it is transformed into the heavier isotope uranium-239. This nuclear species quickly disintegrates to form neptunium-239, an isotope of element 93. Another disintegration transmutes this isotope into an isotope of element 94, which is plutonium-239. Plutonium-239, like uranium-235, undergoes fission after the absorption of a neutron and can be used as bomb material. Producing plutonium-239 in large quantities requires an intense source of neutrons; the source is provided by the controlled chain reaction in a nuclear reactor. See Nuclear Physics.

During World War II nuclear reactors built in the United States, and later in Britain, were designed to provide neutrons to produce plutonium. Reactors capable of manufacturing large quantities of plutonium were established at a vast site in Hanford, Washington, which is now in the process of a large-scale environmental clear-up.

VII.

Thermonuclear (Fusion) Weapons

Even before the first atomic bomb was developed, scientists realized that a type of nuclear reaction different from the fission process was theoretically possible as a source of nuclear energy. Instead of using the energy released as a result of a chain reaction in fissile material, nuclear weapons could utilize the energy liberated in the fusion of light elements. This process is the opposite of fission, since it involves the fusing together of the nuclei of isotopes of light atoms such as hydrogen. It is for this reason that the weapons based on nuclear-fusion reactions are often called hydrogen bombs, or H-bombs.

Of the three isotopes of hydrogen the two heaviest species, deuterium and tritium, combine most readily to form helium. Although the energy release in the fusion process is less per nuclear reaction than in fission, 0.5 kg (1s lb) of the heavier material contains many more atoms; thus, energy liberated from 0.5 kg (1s lb) of hydrogen-isotope fuel is equivalent to that of about 29 kilotons of TNT, or almost three times as much as from uranium. This estimate, however, is based on complete fusion of all hydrogen atoms.

Fusion reactions—the same processes that take place inside the Sun—occur only at temperatures of several millions of degrees, the rate increasing enormously with rising temperature. Such reactions consequently are known as thermonuclear (heat-induced) reactions. Strictly speaking, the term “thermonuclear” implies that the nuclei have a range (or distribution) of energies characteristic of the temperature. This plays an important role in making rapid fusion reactions possible by an increase in temperature.

Development of the hydrogen bomb was impossible before the perfection of A-bombs, for only the latter could yield the tremendous heat necessary to achieve fusion of hydrogen atoms. Atomic scientists used an atomic bomb to act as the trigger of the projected thermonuclear device.

A.

Thermonuclear Tests

Following developmental tests in the spring of 1951 at the Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands, a full-scale, successful experiment with a fusion-type device was conducted on November 1, 1952. This test, code-named Mike, produced an explosion with power equivalent to several megatons of TNT. The Soviet Union detonated a thermonuclear weapon in the megaton range in August 1953. As with the Soviet A-bomb, exploded in 1949, this happened many years earlier than expected. On March 1, 1954, the United States exploded a fusion bomb with a power of 15 megatons. It created a glowing fireball more than 4.8 km (3 mi) wide, and a huge mushroom cloud, which quickly rose into the stratosphere.

The March 1954 explosion led to worldwide recognition of the nature of radioactive fallout. The fallout of radioactive debris from the huge bomb cloud also revealed much about the nature of the thermonuclear bomb. Had the bomb been a weapon consisting of an A-bomb trigger and a core of hydrogen isotopes, the only persistent radioactivity from the explosion would have been the result of the fission debris from the trigger and from the radioactivity induced by neutrons in coral and seawater. Testing of radioactive debris that fell on the unfortunate Japanese vessel the Lucky Dragon, which was tuna-fishing about 160 km (100 mi) from the test site, demonstrated that the bomb that dusted the vessel with fallout, with its subsequent casualties, was more than just an H-bomb.

VIII.

Fission-Fusion-Fission Bomb

The thermonuclear bomb exploded in 1954 was a three-stage weapon. The first stage consisted of a large A-bomb, which acted as a trigger. The second stage was the H-bomb phase resulting from the fusion of deuterium and tritium within the bomb. In the process helium and high-energy neutrons were formed. The third stage resulted from the impact of these high-speed neutrons on the outer jacket of the bomb, which consisted of natural uranium, or uranium-238. No chain reaction was produced, but the fusion neutrons had sufficient energy to cause fission of the uranium nuclei and thus added to the explosive yield and also to the radioactivity of the bomb residues.

IX.

Neutron Bomb

The enhanced radiation fusion bomb, also called the neutron bomb, which has been tested by the United States and other nuclear powers, does not release long-lasting radioactive fission products; however, the large number of neutrons released in thermonuclear reactions is known to induce radioactivity in materials, especially earth and water, within a relatively small area around the explosion. Thus the neutron bomb is considered a tactical weapon because it can do serious damage on the battlefield, penetrating tanks and other armoured vehicles and causing death or serious injury to exposed combatants, without, in theory, producing the radioactive fallout that endangers people or structures miles away.

X.

Effects of Nuclear Weapons

The effects of nuclear weapons are analysed according to blast; heat; radiation; and effects on climate and ecology.

A.

Blast Effects

As is the case with explosions caused by conventional weapons, most of the damage to buildings and other structures from a nuclear explosion results, directly or indirectly, from the effects of blast. The very rapid expansion of the bomb materials produces a high-pressure pulse, or shock wave, that moves rapidly outward from the exploding bomb. In air, this shock wave is known as a blast wave because it is equivalent to and is accompanied by powerful winds of much greater than hurricane force.

Damage is caused both by the high excess (or overpressure) of air at the front of the blast wave and by the extremely strong winds that persist after the wave front has passed. The degree of blast damage suffered on the ground depends on the TNT equivalent of the explosion; the altitude at which the bomb is exploded, referred to as the height of burst; and the distance of the structure from ground zero—that is, the point directly under the bomb. For the 13- and 20-kiloton A-bombs detonated over Japan, the height of burst was about 550 m (1,800 ft), because it was estimated that this height would produce a maximum area of damage. If the TNT equivalent had been larger, a greater height of burst would have been chosen.

Assuming a height of burst that will maximize the damage area, a 10-kiloton bomb will cause severe damage to lighter structures such as wood-frame houses (such as are common in Japan and the United States) to a distance of more than 1.6 km (1 mi) from ground zero. It will cause moderate damage as far as 2.4 km (1y mi); a severely damaged house probably would be beyond repair.

The damage radius increases with the power of the bomb approximately in proportion to its cube root. If exploded at the optimum height, therefore, a 10-megaton weapon, which is 1,000 times as powerful as a 10-kiloton weapon, will increase the distance tenfold—that is, to 17.7 km (11 mi) for severe damage and 24 km (15 mi) for moderate damage of a frame house.

B.

Thermal Effects

The very high temperatures attained in a nuclear explosion result in the formation of a fireball—an extremely hot incandescent mass of gas. For a 10-kiloton explosion in the air, the fireball will attain a maximum diameter of about 300 m (1,000 ft); for a 10-megaton weapon the fireball may be 4.8 km (3 mi) across. A flash of thermal (heat) radiation is emitted from the fireball and spreads out over a large area, but with steadily decreasing intensity.

The amount of heat energy received a certain distance from the nuclear explosion depends on the power of the weapon and the state of the atmosphere. If the visibility is poor or the explosion takes place above clouds, the effectiveness of the heat flash is decreased. The thermal radiation falling on exposed skin will cause flash burns. A 10-kiloton explosion in the air will produce moderate (second-degree) flash burns, which require medical attention, as far as 2.4 km (1y mi) from ground zero; for a 10-megaton bomb, the corresponding distance would be more than 32 km (20 mi). Milder burns of bare skin would be experienced even further out. Most ordinary clothing provides protection from the heat radiation, as does almost any opaque object. Flash burns occur when the bare skin is directly exposed, or if the clothing is too thin to absorb the thermal radiation.

The heat radiation can start fires in dry, flammable materials such as paper and some fabrics; these fires spread in typically urban conditions. In the A-bomb explosions over Japan many fires, especially in the area near ground zero, originated from secondary causes, such as electrical short circuits, broken gas lines, and upset furnaces and boilers in industrial plants. The blast damage produced debris that helped to maintain the fires.

Under some conditions, such as existed at Hiroshima but not at Nagasaki, many individual fires can combine to produce a firestorm similar to those that accompany some large forest fires. The heat of the fire causes a strong updraught, which produces strong winds drawn in towards the centre of the burning area. These winds fan the flames and convert the area into a holocaust in which everything flammable is destroyed. Inasmuch as the flames are drawn inward, however, the area over which such a fire spreads may be limited.

C.

Penetrating Radiation

Besides heat and blast, an exploding nuclear bomb has a unique effect—it releases penetrating nuclear radiation, which is quite different from thermal (or heat) radiation. The nature of radioactivity and the immense areas contaminable by a single bomb undoubtedly make radioactive fallout potentially one of the most lethal effects of nuclear weapons. When absorbed by the body, nuclear radiation causes serious injury. For an explosion high in the air, the injury range for these radiations is less than for blast and fire damage or flash burns. In Japan, however, many individuals who were protected from blast and burns succumbed later to radiation sickness.

Nuclear radiation from an explosion may be divided into two categories, namely, prompt radiation and residual radiation. Prompt radiation consists of an instantaneous burst of neutrons and gamma rays, which travel over an area of several square kilometres. Gamma rays are identical in effect to X-rays. Both neutrons and gamma rays have the ability to penetrate solid matter, so that substantial thicknesses of shielding materials are required.

Residual nuclear radiation, generally known as fallout, is a hazard that affects very large areas that are completely free from other effects of a nuclear explosion. In bombs that gain their energy from fission of uranium-235 or plutonium-239, two radioactive nuclei are produced for every fissile nucleus split. These fission products account for the persistent radioactivity in bomb debris, because many of the atoms have half-lives measured in days, months, or years.

Two distinct categories of fallout—namely, early and delayed—are known. If a nuclear explosion occurs near the surface, earth or water is taken up into a mushroom-shaped cloud and becomes contaminated with the radioactive weapon residues. The contaminated material begins to descend within a few minutes and may continue for about 24 hours, covering an area of thousands of square miles downwind from the explosion. This constitutes the early fallout, which is an immediate hazard to human beings. No early fallout is associated with high-altitude explosions. If a nuclear bomb is exploded well above the ground, the radioactive residues rise to a great height in the mushroom cloud and descend gradually over a large area.

Human experience with radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons is based on case histories resulting from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs and from the exposure of the Marshall islanders and the Lucky Dragon fishermen to the fallout from the March 1954 15-megaton H-bomb test.

D.

Electromagnetic Pulse

A nuclear explosion also produces a very powerful surge of electromagnetic energy capable of overloading power supply systems and burning out transistors and capacitors. A single 10-megaton nuclear bomb exploded high above ground would destroy or disrupt telecommunications and all electronic and electrical systems on a nationwide scale.

E.

Climatic Effects

Besides the widespread blast, radiation, and fire damage from individual bombs, a large-scale nuclear exchange between nations could conceivably have a catastrophic global effect on climate. This possibility, initially proposed in a paper published by an international group of scientists in December 1983, became known as the nuclear winter theory. According to this theory, the explosion of not even one half of the combined number of warheads in the United States and Russia would throw enormous quantities of dust and smoke into the atmosphere, sufficient to block out sunlight for several months, particularly in the Northern hemisphere. This would destroy plant life and create a sub-freezing climate until the dust dispersed. The ozone layer would also be affected, permitting further damage as a result of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Were the results sufficiently prolonged, they could spell the virtual end of human civilization.