![]() The yield is predominantly from the fusion and the tamper fission, and a relatively small amount of expensive material is needed for the primary.Īlmost all current nuclear weapons are thermonuclear. Typically, but not always, the fusion then creates additional fission in a natural or depleted uranium tamper, much cheaper per kg than highly-enriched uranium. Without boosting only a small percentage of the fuel actually fissions.)Ī thermonuclear weapon, AKA hydrogen bomb, uses a (nowadays always boosted) fission primary to cause a larger fusion reaction. It doesn't make much yield directly but it makes lots of neutrons to cause more fission in the plutonium. (Boosted fission = you put a little bit of fusion fuel in the middle. A pure fission or boosted fission weapon gets most of its yield from the fission of either highly-enriched uranium or weapons-grade plutonium. If you want a large amount of fission fuel, making a shape that's not already supercritical is a significant design constraint.Įconomics is also a factor. So thermonuclear weapons are able to much much more yield for a given total fuel mass.Ī fission bomb must start with a subcritical assembly and detonates by making it become supercritical. Each additional neutron produced by fission therefore has the chance to cause many more fission reactions, each of which comes with on the order of ten times more energy than the initial fusion reaction. People often get that confusion, because they've heard that fusion releases more energy per unit fuel mass, and are then surprised to find out that fission releases much more energy per reaction.Īnd then in a weapon, the crucially important role that fusion fuel plays is that it produces fast neutrons that can induce more fission in an already supercritically-multiplying system of fission reactions. In terms of the relevant reaction Q-values (the amount of energy released by one single reaction), fission does on the order of 10 times better than fusion.īut if you divide the Q-value by the mass of the fuel particles, fusion does better than fission. ![]() We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers. ![]() For more open-ended questions, try /r/AskScienceDiscussion | Sign up to be a panelist!.Looking for flair? Sign up to be a panelist!.Neuroscience, Neurology, Neurochemistry, Cognitive NeuroscienceĪskScience AMA Series: Long COVID and Blood ProtiensĪsk Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, AnthropologyĪskScience AMA Series: NASA Software CatalogĪsk Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary ScienceĪsk Anything Wednesday - Engineering, Mathematics, Computer scienceĪsk Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology Medicine, Oncology, Dentistry, Physiology, Epidemiology, Infectious Disease, Pharmacy, Human Body Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Abnormal, Social Psychology Social Science, Political Science, Economics, Archaeology, Anthropology, Linguisticsīiology, Evolution, Morphology, Ecology, Synthetic Biology, Microbiology, Cellular Biology, Molecular Biology, Paleontology Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Structural Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace EngineeringĬhemistry, Organic Chemistry, Polymers, Biochemistry ![]() Mathematics, Statistics, Number Theory, Calculus, AlgebraĪstronomy, Astrophysics, Cosmology, Planetary FormationĬomputing, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, ComputabilityĮarth Science, Atmospheric Science, Oceanography, Geology Theoretical Physics, Experimental Physics, High-energy Physics, Solid-State Physics, Fluid Dynamics, Relativity, Quantum Physics, Plasma Physics
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