H bomb how does it work

Here is where the hydrogen bomb vessel sits. The casing of the bomb is lined with beryllium, this acts as a mirror to reflect the neutrons back into the casing rather than allowing them to escape the vessel. A small atomic bomb is located at the top of the casing.

It is shaped like a sphere. The top of the sphere contains conventional chemical explosives surrounding a sphere of beryllium mirror casing, inside of which is a smaller uranium or plutonium sphere about 4 to 6 inches in diameter.

Below this atomic bomb is the hydrogen or fusion bomb. It consists of a cylinder made of uranium, the fuel for the fusion reaction, lithium deuteride sits inside the cylinder. And at the core of this cylinder sits a rod of plutonium. Here is what happens. First, the fission bomb is detonated by exploding conventional chemical bombs in sequence, this forces the sphere of plutonium or Uranium to implode on itself.

The implosion or compression of this material creates a critical mass which results in a chain reaction of neutrons splitting atoms apart, and creating more neutrons which split more atoms apart. The chain reaction results in an atomic bomb explosion.

This fission explosion creates high energy gamma rays and X-rays which heat up the Styrofoam and turns it into plasma. This plasma reflects off the baryillium lined walls and focuses its energy on the fusion cylinder.

These x-rays travel at the speed of light, so they reach the hydrogen fuel sooner than the physical shock wave from atomic bomb. This is important because if the shock wave reached there first, then the fusion bomb would be blown apart before it could create fusion reactions. The heat and pressure of the plasma compresses the fusion cylinder causing the lithium-deuteride to react. This releases tritium. The Tritium and deuterium fuse to form Helium and more neutrons.

The neutrons cause the uranium casing and plutonium rod to undergo more fission reactions. This causes more pressure on the lithium-deuteride not only from the outside in, but also from the inside out. This produces more fusion, and releases more neutrons which cause more fission. This positive feedback loop of fission-fusion-fission-fusion reactions goes back and forth until a huge explosion occurs ripping everything apart. All of these events happen in about billionths of a second billionths of a second for the fission bomb implosion, 50 billionths of a second for the fusion bomb.

The result is an immense explosion with a 10,, ton yield — times more powerful than the Hiroshima. And where does all this energy actually come from?

Well if you could weigh all the atoms of the fuel before the explosion and all the atoms released after the fusion. The sum of all atoms after the explosion would be less than the sum of all the atoms before the explosion. And exactly how much mass is converted to energy. To give you an idea, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima converted miligrams of mass into energy, about one third the mass of a US penny. The total uranium used was 55 lbs.

A hydrogen bomb however converts about a kilogram or 2 lbs of mass to pure energy. But in order to convert this much, you have to start with about kilos or lbs. Almost all of the nuclear weapons deployed today are hydrogen bombs because they are much smaller and lighter, and so can be deployed in intercontinental ballistic missiles.

We humans have become quite efficient at it. Become a Patron! Previous Do your late loved ones still exist? Many Worlds Theory has stunning implications…. Next Holographic Universe: Are we living in a hologram? Are we living in a black hole? Science , Technology Hydrogen Bomb: How it works — in detail. Atomic vs Nuclear. June 28, Watch Later Remove Cinema Mode. The only two nuclear weapons that have been used were both fission-based. The nuclear fusion releases neutrons much faster than a fission reaction, and these neutrons then bombard the remaining fissile fuel, causing it to undergo fission much more rapidly.

As such, the main explosive force for the explosion still arises from a fission reaction, but the neutron source for it arises from fusion. Due to the staged design, it is thought that a tertiary section, again comprised of fusion fuel, could be added after the first two stages, based on the same principle that governs the secondary. Boundless vets and curates high-quality, openly licensed content from around the Internet.

This particular resource used the following sources:. Skip to main content. Nuclear Chemistry. Search for:. The Hydrogen Bomb. Learning Objective Recognize the components of a hydrogen bomb.