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Log–log plot comparing the yield (in kilotonnes) and mass (in kilograms) of various nuclear weapons developed by the United States.. The explosive yield of a nuclear weapon is the amount of energy released such as blast, thermal, and nuclear radiation, when that particular nuclear weapon is detonated, usually expressed as a TNT equivalent (the standardized equivalent mass of trinitrotoluene ...
A nuclear weapon [a] is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
In a thermonuclear weapon such as the W88, nuclear fission in the primary stage causes nuclear fusion in the secondary stage, which results in the main explosion. Although the weapon employs fusion in the secondary, most of the explosive yield comes from fission of nuclear material in the primary, secondary, and casing. [8]
The justification for the program was that the new weapon would modernize the nuclear arsenal, improve the capability of aircraft and simplify the nuclear weapons inventory by replacing lower-yield versions of the B28 and B43 nuclear bombs. The desired production date was June 1965. [1] The weapon was designated the TX-61 in January 1963.
Tactical nuclear weapons were a large part of the peak nuclear weapons stockpile levels during the Cold War. US scientists with a full-scale cut-away model of the W48, a very small tactical nuclear weapon with an explosive yield equivalent to 72 tons of TNT (0.072 kiloton). Around 100 of such shells were produced during the Cold War.
The components of a B83 nuclear bomb used by the United States. This is a list of nuclear weapons listed according to country of origin, and then by type within the states. . The United States, Russia, China and India are known to possess a nuclear triad, being capable to deliver nuclear weapons by land, sea and
A nuclear explosion is an explosion that occurs as a result of the rapid release of energy from a high-speed nuclear reaction.The driving reaction may be nuclear fission or nuclear fusion or a multi-stage cascading combination of the two, though to date all fusion-based weapons have used a fission device to initiate fusion, and a pure fusion weapon remains a hypothetical device.
A tactical nuclear weapon, it was manufactured starting in 1963, and all units were retired in 1992. It was known as the XM454 AFAP (artillery fired atomic projectile) in US service. The weapon was 34 inches (86 cm) long and weighed 120 pounds (54 kg), and was produced in two versions; the Mod 0 and Mod 1. Declassified British document give the ...