STANSFORD

INTERNATIONAL
HR. SEC. SCHOOL

INVESTIGATORY PROJECT

PHYSICS
NUCLEAR BOMB

Submitted by

GEVINKER.J.B
 CERTIFICATE OF
COMPLETION

This is to certify that Gevinker.J.B of class

XII – A1 A has successfully completed the
investigatory project on the topic
“NUCLEAR BOMB” under the guidance
and instructions of mr. Tilipkumar during
the year 2021 – 2022 in the partial
fulfilment of physics practical examination
of central board of secondary education.

Mentor and Guide

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my special thanks

of gratitude to my physics teacher MR.
Tilipkumar who gave me the golden
opportunity to do this wonderful project of
physics, who helped me in completing his
project

I came to know about so many new

things. I am really thankful to them

Secondly, I would also like to thank my

parents and friends who helped me a lot
in finalizing this project within the limited
time frame
 LIST OF CONTENTS

 INTRODUCTION
 PRINCIPLE0 OF ATOMIC (FISSION)
WEAPON
 PRINCIPLE OF THERMONUCLEAR
(FUSION) WEAPON
 THE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPON
 ADVANTAGE OF NUCLEAR
WEAPON
 DISADVANTAGES OF NUCLEAR
WEAPON
 CONCLUSION
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
NUCLEAR
BOMB
 INTRODUCTION
Nuclear bombs were also called as
nuclear weapons, Nuclear bomb possess
enormous destructive power from nuclear
fission or combined fission and fusion
reactions. Building on scientific
breakthroughs made during the 1930s, the
United States, the United Kingdom,
Canada, and free France collaborated
during world war II, in what was called
the Manhattan project, to build a fission
weapon, also known as an atomic bomb.
In August 1945, the atomic bombings of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were conducted
by the United States against Japan at the
close of that war, standing to date as the
only use of nuclear weapons in hostilities

A nuclear weapon (also known as an

atom bomb, atomic bomb, nuclear
bomb) is an explosive device that derives
its destructive force from nuclear
reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or
from a combination of fission and fusion
reactions (thermonuclear bomb).
 Principles of atomic
(fission) weapons
The fission process:

When bombarded by neutrons, certain isotopes of

uranium and plutonium (and some other heavier
elements) will split into atoms of lighter elements, a
process known as nuclear fission. In addition to this
formation of lighter atoms, on average between
2.5 and 3 free neutrons are emitted in the fission
process, along with considerable energy. As a rule
of thumb, the complete fission of 1 kg (2.2 pounds)
of uranium or plutonium produces about 17.5
kilotons of TNT-equivalent explosive energy.

In an atomic bomb, first a small number of neutrons

are given enough energy to collide with some
fissionable nuclei, which in turn produce additional
free neutrons. A portion of these neutrons are
captured by nuclei that do not fission; others
escape the material without being captured; and
the remainder cause further fissions. Many heavy
atomic nuclei are capable of fissioning, but only a
fraction of these are fissile—that is, fissionable not
only by fast (highly energetic) neutrons but also by
slow neutrons. The continuing process whereby
neutrons emitted by fissioning nuclei induce fissions
in other fissile or fissionable nuclei is called a
fission chain reaction. If the number of fissions in
one generation is equal to the number of neutrons
in the preceding generation, the system is said to
be critical; if the number is greater than one, it is
supercritical; and if it is less than one, it is subcritical.
In the case of a nuclear reactor, the number of
fissionable nuclei available in each generation is
carefully controlled to prevent a “runaway” chain
reaction. In the case of an atomic bomb, however,
a very rapid growth in the number of fissions is
sought.

Fission weapons are normally made with materials

having high concentrations of the fissile isotopes
uranium-235, plutonium-239, or some combination
of these; however, some explosive devices using
high concentrations of uranium-233 also have been
constructed and tested.

The primary natural isotopes of uranium are

uranium-235 (0.7 percent), which is fissile, and
uranium-238 (99.3 percent), which is fissionable but
not fissile. In nature, plutonium exists only in minute
concentrations, so the fissile isotope plutonium-239
is made artificially in nuclear reactors from uranium-
238. (See uranium processing.) In order to make an
explosion, fission weapons do not require uranium
or plutonium that is pure in the isotopes uranium-
235 and plutonium-239. Most of the uranium used in
current nuclear weapons is approximately 93.5
percent enriched uranium-235. Nuclear weapons
typically contain 93 percent or more plutonium-239,
less than 7 percent plutonium-240, and very small
quantities of other plutonium isotopes. Plutonium-
240, a by-product of plutonium production, has
several undesirable characteristics, including a
larger critical mass (that is, the mass required to
generate a chain reaction),
greater radiation exposure to workers (relative to
plutonium-239), and, for some weapon designs, a
high rate of spontaneous fission that can cause a
chain reaction to initiate prematurely, resulting in a
smaller yield. Consequently, in reactors used for the
production of weapons-grade plutonium-239, the
period of time that the uranium-238 is left in the
reactor is restricted in order to limit the buildup of
plutonium-240 to about 6 percent.
Critical mass and the fissile core

As is indicated above, the minimum mass of fissile

material necessary to sustain a chain reaction is
called the critical mass. This quantity depends on
the type, density, and shape of the fissile material
and the degree to which surrounding materials
reflect neutrons back into the fissile core. A mass
that is less than the critical amount is said to be
subcritical, while a mass greater than the critical
amount is referred to as supercritical.

A sphere has the largest volume-to-surface ratio of

any solid. Thus, a spherical fissile core has the
fewest escaping neutrons per unit of material, and
this compact shape results in the smallest critical
mass, all else being equal. The critical mass of a
bare sphere of uranium-235 at normal density is
approximately 47 kg (104 pounds); for plutonium-
239, critical mass is approximately 10 kg (22
pounds). The critical mass can be lowered in
several ways, the most common being a
surrounding shell of some other material that
reflects some of the escaping neutrons back into
the fissile core. Practical reflectors can reduce the
critical mass by a factor of two or three, so that
about 15 kg (33 pounds) of uranium-235 and about
5 to 10 kg (11 to 22 pounds) of either plutonium-239
or uranium-233 at normal density can be made
critical. The critical mass can also be lowered by
compressing the fissile core, because at higher
densities emitted neutrons are more likely to strike a
fissionable nucleus before escaping.
Gun assembly, implosion, and boosting

In order to produce a nuclear explosion, subcritical

masses of fissionable material must be rapidly
assembled into a supercritical configuration. The
simplest weapon design is the pure fission gun-
assembly device, in which an explosive propellant
is used to fire one subcritical mass down a “gun
barrel” into another subcritical mass. Plutonium
cannot be used as the fissile material in a gun-
assembly device, because the speed of assembly
in this device is too slow to preclude the high
probability that a chain reaction will “pre-initiate”
by spontaneous neutron emission, thereby
generating an explosive yield of only a few tens of
tons. Therefore, gun-assembly weapons are made
with highly enriched uranium, typically more than

80 percent uranium-235.
 Principles of thermonuclear
(fusion) weapons

The fusion process

Nuclear fusion is the joining (or fusing) of the nuclei

of two atoms to form a single heavier atom. At
extremely high temperatures—in the range of tens
of millions of degrees—the nuclei of isotopes
of hydrogen (and some other light elements) can
readily combine to form heavier elements and in
the process release considerable energy—hence
the term hydrogen bomb. At these temperatures,
the kinetic energy of the nuclei (the energy of their
motion) is sufficient to overcome the long-range
electrostatic repulsive force between them, such
that the nuclei can get close enough together for
the shorter-range strong force to attract and fuse
the nuclei—hence the term thermonuclear. In
thermonuclear weapons, the required
temperatures and density of the fusion materials
are achieved with a fission explosion.

Deuterium and tritium, which are isotopes of

hydrogen, provide ideal interacting nuclei for the
fusion process. Two atoms of deuterium, each with
one proton and one neutron, or tritium, with one
proton and two neutrons, combine during the
fusion process to form a heavier helium nucleus,
which has two protons and either one or two
neutrons. Tritium is radioactive and has a half-life of
12.32 years. The principal thermonuclear material in
most thermonuclear weapons is lithium-6 deuteride,
a solid chemical compound that at normal
temperatures does not undergo radioactive
decay. In this case, the tritium is produced in the
weapon itself by neutron bombardment of the
lithium-6 isotope during the course of the fusion
reaction. In thermonuclear weapons, the fusion
material can be incorporated directly in (or
proximate to) the fissile core—for example, in the
boosted fission device—or external to the fissile
core, or both.

Basic two-stage design

A typical thermonuclear warhead may be

constructed according to a two-stage design,
featuring a fission or boosted-fission primary (also
called the trigger) and a physically separate
component called the secondary. Both primary
and secondary are contained within an outer
metal case. Radiation from the fission explosion of
the primary is contained and used to transfer
energy to compress and ignite the secondary.
Some of the initial radiation from the primary
explosion is absorbed by the inner surface of the
case, which is made of a high-density material such
as uranium. Radiation absorption heats the inner
surface of the case, turning it into
an opaque boundary of hot electrons and ions.
Subsequent radiation from the primary is largely
confined between this boundary and the outer
surface of the secondary capsule. Initial, reflected,
and re-irradiated radiation trapped within this
cavity is absorbed by lower-density material within
the cavity, converting it into a hot plasma of
electrons and ion particles that continue to absorb
energy from the confined radiation. The total
pressure in the cavity—the sum of the contribution
from the very energetic particles and the generally
smaller contribution from the radiation—is applied
to the secondary capsule’s heavy
metal outer shell (called a pusher), thereby
compressing the secondary.

Typically, contained within the pusher is

some fusion material, such as lithium-6 deuteride,
surrounding a “spark plug” of explosive fissionable
material (generally uranium-235) at the centre. With
the fission primary generating an explosive yield in
the kiloton range, compression of the secondary is
much greater than can be achieved using
chemical high explosives. Compression of the spark
plug results in a fission explosion that creates
temperatures comparable to those of the Sun and
a copious supply of neutrons for fusion of the
surrounding, and now compressed, thermonuclear
materials. Thus, the fission and fusion processes that
take place in the secondary are generally much
more efficient than those that take place in the
primary.

In an efficient, modern two-stage device—such as

a long-range ballistic missile warhead—the primary
is boosted in order to conserve on volume and
weight. Boosted primaries in modern
thermonuclear weapons contain about 3 to 4 kg
(6.6 to 8.8 pounds) of plutonium, while less-
sophisticated designs may use double that amount
or more. The secondary typically contains a
composite of fusion and fissile materials carefully
tailored to maximize the yield-to-weight or yield-to-
volume ratio of the warhead, although it is possible
to construct secondaries from purely fissile or fusion
materials
 The effects of nuclear
weapons
Nuclear weapons are fundamentally different from
conventional weapons because of the vast
amounts of explosive energy they can release and
the kinds of effects they produce, such as high
temperatures and radiation. The prompt effects of
a nuclear explosion and fallout are well known
through data gathered from the attacks
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan; from more
than 500 atmospheric and more than 1,500
underground nuclear tests conducted worldwide;
and from extensive calculations and computer
modeling. Longer-term effects on human health
and the environment are less certain but have
been extensively studied. The impacts of a nuclear
explosion depend on many factors, including the
design of the weapon (fission or fusion) and its yield;
whether the detonation takes place in the air (and
at what altitude), on the surface, underground, or
underwater; the meteorological and environmental
conditions; and whether the target is urban, rural,
or military
Advantages of Nuclear weapon

 It reinforces the idea of nationalism from a

border-based perspective.
 Nuclear weapons do serve as a deterrent to a
global conflict.
 This technology creates a bargaining chip for
countries that need it.
 Nuclear weapons reduce the threat to a
country’s military forces.
 The use of nuclear weapons creates a
significant threat of terrorism.
 Nuclear weapons helped us to create new
technologies in other sectors
 Disadvantages of Nuclear
weapon
 They have added development
and maintenance costs.
 It provides a major terror threat.
 It is a non-renewable resource.
 A nuclear weapon can fail
because of a degraded delivery
system.
 Testing must require a detonation
at some point.
 CONCLUSION
Our society is becoming ever-more global.
Because of the internet, communications
improvements, and other technological advances,
we can talk with anyone, anywhere, with a simple
data connection. New transportation technologies
are in development that can provide long-distance
transportation at speeds which were unthinkable
just a generation ago. By reinforcing national
borders, a global society of cooperation can be
built through negotiation and diplomacy instead of
warfare.

Countries with nuclear weapons are treated

different on the global stage than countries without
those weapons. North Korea may only have a
dozen or so nuclear weapons at best estimate, but
their demands are taken with an extra level of
seriousness and scrutiny because they have
developed rudimentary nuclear weapon
technology. Because there is a desire to avoid such
a devastating conflict, most nations with nuclear
weapons can generally get what they want on-
demand.
Only two cities have ever been directly affected by
nuclear weapons in history. Both were in Japan:
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just two bombs caused
the death of over 129,000 people, with many of
them being civilians. Acute effects from the bombs
may have contributed to the deaths of over
250,000 additional people in the following
decades. Even if military complexes are struck with
a nuclear weapon, there will be civilian casualties.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBSITE LINKS:
https://www.britannica.com/technolo
gy/nuclear-weapon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic
_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagas
aki
https://vittana.org/16-pros-and-cons-
of-nuclear-weapons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History
_of_nuclear_weapons