WebNuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types: pure fission weapons, the simplest and least technically demanding, were the first nuclear weapons built and have so far been the only type ever used in warfare (by …

WebA thermonuclear weapon, 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.Characteristics of nuclear fusion reactions make possible the use of non-fissile …

WebRed Beard was the first British tactical nuclear weapon.It was carried by Royal Air Force (RAF) English Electric Canberra medium bombers and the V bomber force and by Supermarine Scimitars, de Havilland Sea Vixens, and Blackburn Buccaneers of the Royal Navy's (RN) Fleet Air Arm (FAA). Developed to Operational Requirement OR.1127, it was …

WebThe Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground.It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear …

WebEight sovereign states have publicly announced successful detonation of nuclear weapons. Five are considered to be nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under the terms of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). In order of acquisition of nuclear weapons, these are the United States, Russia (the successor of the former Soviet Union), …

WebA 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. The rate of fission is thereby greatly …

WebWeapons-grade nuclear material is any fissionable nuclear material that is pure enough to make a nuclear weapon or has properties that make it particularly suitable for nuclear weapons use. Plutonium and uranium in grades normally used in nuclear weapons are the most common examples. (These nuclear materials have other categorizations based on …

WebGun-type fission weapons are fission-based nuclear weapons whose design assembles their fissile material into a supercritical mass by the use of the "gun" method: shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another. Although this is sometimes pictured as two sub-critical hemispheres driven together to make a supercritical sphere, typically a hollow …

WebThe effects of a nuclear explosion on its immediate vicinity are typically much more destructive and multifaceted than those caused by conventional explosives.In most cases, the energy released from a nuclear weapon detonated within the lower atmosphere can be approximately divided into four basic categories:. the blast itself: 50% of total energy; …

WebA nuclear bunker buster, also known as an earth-penetrating weapon (EPW), is the nuclear equivalent of the conventional bunker buster.The non-nuclear component of the weapon is designed to penetrate soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead to an underground target. These weapons would be used to destroy hardened, underground …