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To reduce the concentration of Pu-240 in the plutonium produced, weapons program plutonium production reactors (e.g. B Reactor) irradiate the uranium for a far shorter time than is normal for a nuclear power reactor. More precisely, weapons-grade plutonium is obtained from uranium irradiated to a low burnup.
The demon core (like the core used in the bombing of Nagasaki) was, when assembled, a solid 6.2-kilogram (14 lb) sphere measuring 8.9 centimeters (3.5 in) in diameter.. It consisted of three parts made of plutonium-gallium: two hemispheres and an anti-jet ring, designed to keep neutron flux from "jetting" out of the joined surface between the hemispheres during implosi
The pits of the first nuclear weapons were solid, with an urchin neutron initiator in their center. The Gadget and Fat Man used pits made of 6.2 kg of solid hot pressed plutonium-gallium alloy (at 400 °C and 200 MPa in steel dies – 750 °F and 29,000 psi) half-spheres of 9.2 cm (3.6 in) diameter, with a 2.5 cm (1 in) internal cavity for the initiator.
The agency that oversees the United States’ nuclear arsenal says it doesn’t need to do any broad environmental reviews of a proposal that calls for ramping up production of plutonium triggers ...
The X-10 Graphite Reactor is a decommissioned nuclear reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.Formerly known as the Clinton Pile and X-10 Pile, it was the world's second artificial nuclear reactor (after Enrico Fermi's Chicago Pile-1) and the first intended for continuous operation.
Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons. A ...
Diagram of an RTG used on the Cassini probe. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG, RITEG), sometimes referred to as a radioisotope power system (RPS), is a type of nuclear battery that uses an array of thermocouples to convert the heat released by the decay of a suitable radioactive material into electricity by the Seebeck effect.
The impracticability of a gun-type bomb using plutonium was agreed at a meeting held on 17 July 1944. All gun-type work in the Manhattan Project was directed at the Little Boy enriched uranium gun design, and almost all of the research at the Los Alamos Laboratory was re-oriented around the problems of implosion for the Fat Man bomb. [25] [26]