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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.
Over its history, Rocky Flats became the primary plutonium pit production site in the United States. Los Alamos National Laboratory would continue to be used as a pit R&D facility from 1949 to 2013. [28] The Hanford Site also produced plutonium pits from 1949 to 1965. [28] [29] The AEC called Rocky Flats a "Weapon Production Facility" in a 1956 ...
A hollow plutonium pit was the original plan for the 1945 Fat Man bomb, but there was not enough time to develop and test the implosion system for it. A simpler solid-pit design was considered more reliable, given the time constraints, but it required a heavy U-238 tamper, a thick aluminium pusher, and three tons of high explosives. [citation ...
The plutonium pit [27] was 3.62 inches (92 mm) in diameter and contained an "Urchin" modulated neutron initiator that was 0.8 inches (20 mm) in diameter. The depleted uranium tamper was an 8.75-inch-diameter (222 mm) sphere, surrounded by a 0.125-inch-thick (3.2 mm) shell of boron-impregnated plastic.
Plutonium–gallium–cobalt alloy (PuCoGa 5) is an unconventional superconductor, showing superconductivity below 18.5 K, an order of magnitude higher than the highest between heavy fermion systems, and has large critical current. [46] [50] Plutonium–zirconium alloy can be used as nuclear fuel. [51]
The initiator used in the early devices, located at the center of the bomb's plutonium pit, consisted of a beryllium pellet and a beryllium shell with polonium between the two. The pellet, 0.8 cm in diameter, was coated with nickel and then a layer of gold. The beryllium shell was of 2 cm outer diameter with wall thickness of 0.6 cm.
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
Plutonium production peaked in 1965, when 4,500 kilograms was produced. Between 1957 and 1961, nine different types of pits were produced at Hanford. Pit production ended in 1965, when the Atomic Energy Commission announced that henceforth this work would be undertaken at