05-20-2023, 09:13 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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That is before you get into the "fission-fusion-fission" thing. There's a rule of thumb that yield doubles for each stage you add. Fission needs neutrons to start and you have to use elements that ae natural sources of neutrons. Fission also puts out 94% of its energy as heat and only 2.4% as more neutrons. De-T fusion needs heat to initiate but puts out 80% of its' yield as neutrons. Using these two things in alternation is a textbook definition of "synergy". You begin by boosting the Pu-239 stage by adding deuterium and tritium gas to its' hollow core before detonation. These gasses fuse as a result of first stage fission and make lots of neutrons which fuels more fission and so on. Allegedly the Russian name for such devices is "sloika" which translates as "layered pastry". The last stage of a modern bomb is the outer shell known is the "tamper". This is a dense metal that keeps the bomb components in close enough proximity (for a time measured in microseconds) to interact through sheer inertia. The tamper is probably the heaviest component of the bomb by large margin and is lead if you want a "clean" bomb with relatively low levels of fission by-products or uranium if you want another doubling stage of power and can stand the fallout of a "dirty" bomb. The 475kt device John i'd is probably the W88 which replaced the 300 kt W84. The W84 was probably the warhead of the first mirv'ed Minuteman missiles (in the 70s) which replaced an earlier single 1 megaton warhead with 3 300 kt models. The liquid fuel Titan missiles of the early 60s may have had bigger warheads and B-52s of that era may have had 5 and 10 megaton bombs to drop. The largest bomb ever tested was the Soviet era "Tsar bomba" at 50 megatons and supposedly 30,000 lbs weight just for the bomb. It's outer layer was lead so it could have been 2x as powerful if uranium had been used but the Tu-95 "Bear" heavy bomber that dropped it on the test range allegedly only just survived at the 50 megaton level.
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Fred Brackin |
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05-22-2023, 04:56 PM | #12 |
Join Date: May 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
I thought that the TU-95 that dropped the Tsar Bomba was caught in the explosion & destroyed.
Urban myth? |
05-22-2023, 06:38 PM | #13 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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There was also a Tu-16 observer plane that was there to film, take air samples, and so on. It was even further away than the Tu-95, and also survived. |
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05-22-2023, 10:03 PM | #14 | |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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At the far end of extremes, a gigajoule of neutrinos wouldn't do anything at all. A lightning bolt and a ton of TNT might be comparable in energy output, but you're more likely to survive a lightning strike than being at ground zero of a 1 ton TNT blast (and if conditions are right, the lightning strike might even not do any damage at all). The TNT blast has far more energy than a rifle shot, but a well-used rifle will kill you at a greater distance than the TNT will.
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HMS Overflow-For conversations off topic here. Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 05-22-2023 at 10:07 PM. |
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05-22-2023, 10:11 PM | #15 |
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
It could be interesting to come up with something that could plausibly be damaged by neutrinos, though (other than by straight GM fiat like 'energy beings naturally interact with neutrinos, and have blasters made of energy that shoot coherent neutrino beams').
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Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life. "The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates." -- Tacitus Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted. |
05-22-2023, 10:42 PM | #16 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
Since if something damaged whatever was inside a black hole we couldn't see it, the next likely candidate is a neutron star. It might not be a lot of damage but the sort of neutrino flux you'd get from a close-ish supernova might make for a sort of detectable hiccup.
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Fred Brackin |
05-22-2023, 11:05 PM | #17 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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05-23-2023, 01:56 AM | #18 | |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
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05-23-2023, 04:33 AM | #19 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
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GURPS Overhaul |
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05-23-2023, 05:32 AM | #20 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: A Gigajoule of Damage
The most powerful nuke ever made was the Tsar Bomba, somewhere in the vicinity of 50-58 Megatons of TNT. In theory it could have had a 100 MT yield, but in order to reduce radioactive fallout one of the mechanisms for boosting yield was left out. 50 MT is about 210 Petajoules, or 210,000 Gigajoules.
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Tags |
damage, energy, nuclear weapons |
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