The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How To Build an Atomic Bomb by Robert Serber Richard Rhodes

Author:Robert Serber, Richard Rhodes [Robert Serber, Richard Rhodes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California Press - A
Published: 1992-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

the maximum pressure varying as 1/r3 instead of the usual 1/r2 because the width of the strongly compressed region increases proportionally to r.

This behavior continues as long as p is greater than about 2 atmospheres. At lower pressures there is a transition to ordinary acoustic behavior, the width of the pulse no longer increasing.

If destructive action may be regarded as measured by the maximum pressure amplitude, it follows that the radius of destructive action produced by an explosion varies as 3E. Now ina½ton bomb, containing ¼ ton of TNT, the destructive radius is of the order of 150 feet. Hence in a bomb equivalent to 100000 tons of TNT (or 5 kg of active material totally converted) one would expect a destructive radius of the order of 3400000×150=1.1×104 feet or about 2 miles.

This points roughly to the kind of results which may be expected from a device of the kind we hope to make. Since the one factor that determines the damage is the energy release, our aim is simply to get as much energy from the explosion as we can. And since the materials we use are very precious, we are constrained to do this with as high an efficiency as is possible.

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