The A Bomb :: essays research papers

The Atomic peltThe first atomic bomb was tested on July 16,1945 at Alamogordo, naked as a jaybird Mexico and was developed, constructed and tested by the Manhattan Project. The new device represented a on the whole new type of explosion. All explosives before this time got their might for the fast burning of a chemical compound like gunpowder. These bombs could only do a limited sum up of damage.This new group of nuclear explosives regard getting energy sources from within the kernel of the atom. The Atomic bomb gained its world-beater from the fission of all of the atomic nuclei in several kilos of uranium. A puffiness about the size of a baseball made an explosion get even to about 20,000 tons of TNT. An atomic bomb can also be called a fission bomb because it uses fission to release the nuclear power from the fuel. The fuel is usually either Uranium-235 or plutomium-239. Uranium-235 has an extra property that makes it useful for both(prenominal) nuclear power produ ction and for nuclear bombs - it is one of the fewer materials that can undergo induced fission. If a neutron runs into a Uranium nucleus, the nucleus will absorb the neutron, become unstable and split immediately. As curtly as the nucleus captures the neutron, it splits into two lighter atoms and throws off 2 or 3 new neutrons. These neutrons then hit other uranium atoms and a chain reaction is started. An incredible amount of energy is released, in the striving of heat and gamma radiation.In order for these properties of U-235 to work, a sample of uranium must be enriched. Weapons-grade uranium is composed of 90% or more U-235. In a fission bomb, the fuel must be kept in lowly and separate masses. These must be small enough to not support fission otherwise the bomb could have kittens before it is meant to. These masses are called subcritical masses. Critical mass is the minimum amount of fissionable material needed to keep a nuclear fission reaction going. Because the masses are separate there had to be shipway to bring them together to detonate the bomb. There are two slipway to detonate an atomic bomb. The first is the gun-triggered device and the second is the implosion device. In both of these types, neutrons had to be introduced to start the fission. This was done by making a minor neutron generator out of a small pellet of polonium and beryllium, garbled by foil.