Nuclear 101: How Nuclear Bombs Work" Part 2/2
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In Part II, Matthew Bunn discusses how nuclear weapons materials (highly enriched uranium and plutonium) are produced.
Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
Slides from the presentation are available here: belfercenter.org/files/Nuclear...
More information: belfercenter.org/MTA
September 10, 2013
Best cooking show ever.
As good as previous video. It's hard for me to understand why so few viewers watched it ? It's so interesting to understand basics of nuclear energy and politics related to it. Great Video.
J D I’ll second that above comment...haha
@J D I can't understand why people watch 2 hr long Cameron Diaz or Adam Sandler movies, but people do. At least this provides a learning opportunity
Petrezen1982 As an inventive genius. I watched it to see if there was a way to convert small controlled "explosions" directly into electricity (there must be a lot of electrons flying around) Instead of using the current less efficient way which is to use the heat generated to get energy through steam turbines. Plus I'm interested in all science and technology and expanding my knowledge in general. Frankly, with that said, I really think most people are probably scared that if they watch both videos that they will be targeted and spied on by the Government (as I suppose they probably should at least be checked out] . Im guessing that the other people that dont watch it either 1) aren't curious enough about the process or 2) just not intelligent enough to understand the video.
I would also like to add pthat I too am a little concerned about what type of people would watch the 2nd video. I decided that I didn't need to watch it.... And it seems that anyone with a "legitimate need" for that type of nuclear material for legitimate science purposes would not have to make it. So they wouldnt need to watch the 2nd video. However , I understand your scientific curiosity. So please don't take my comment personally.
This is very interested...I so want to go back to skool!
Well done professor Bunn! You're talented at teaching and explaining, and never once found myself bored watching the entire talk. Look forward to listening to more of your lessons.
What an excellent pair of lectures. Well presented, clear, informative, factual and enjoyable to watch and learn from. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us ☺
very good! wish it was a little more in depth. my centrifuge door keeps flying open. now i have to break the news to my mum her washing machine is now fucked :'(
Very enlightening video of the uranium/plutonium processing and uses, yet spoken in very layman terms.
Interesting stuff, thanks for the upload.
As a german, i always find it curious that noone mentions Germany, after all, we have a research reactor running at 80% or 90% enriched U-235 and a stockpile and supply chain for that. We are phasing out of nuclear power production, but that research reactor will stay.
Thank you for the lecture. Interesting to watch a different version of the same topic covered in the Masters I'm doing.
Thank you for the very informative and interesting lecture.:)
Thank you for sharing your knowledge sir.
Thanks for sharing! Very awesome talk
Excellent, serious information on such important issues.
Very well put together lectures for the public. Informational but not so much as to be a step by step guide!
Awesome class! Thank you 🤔👍👍
10:52 actually, someone high up at a reactor plant did regularly.. he swam there, until some board guys or so told him he couldn't do that in front of other staff members and workers there.
A very interesting series, thank you! I would like to see something about thorium as a nuclear fuel. How far off are we and what are the obstacles? Why are we not already using thorium/LFTR?
Excellent lectures which really, in lay-man's terms, explain nuclear weapons and their production processes. Very good!
fitzpatrickken more like " in feynman's terms".
I saw what you did there!
Great work by the prof. He is well versed and is extremely knowledgeable about the physics pertaining to nuclear reactions.
Again a great video, but no words about laser enrichment and how it works.
OpenGL4ever From Wikipedia: //AVLIS uses tunable dye lasers, which can be precisely tuned, so that only U-235 absorbs the photons and selectively undergoes excitation and then photoionization. The ions are then electrostatically deflected to a collector, while the neutral unwanted U-238 passes through.// Basically, the lasers ionize the U235, which is then separated from the U238 by electromagnets.
He said he was going to talk about laser separation, did he forgot or did I miss it. I'm really interested in finding out more about the laser separation process. BTW excellent lecture, thank you for posting.
It is rather fringe and low volume. The absorption spectrum is slightly different, so you can fine tune a laser to selectively knock out one isotope out of a clean mixed metal surface, or excite only one within a gas, leaving the rest in place. So if you have too much money and time, and what you want is a little bit of 99.99% pure U-235, for research and not for a bomb, this is the way to go. The laser has to interact with individual atoms or molecules. For weapons, going for large quantities that are just pure enough but not infinitely pure, this makes no sense.
Great lecture. Really great actually. One observation, though: When it comes to detecting the centrifuges, I'd never expect the intelligence services to say "we got this great idea"! They are supposed to work that way.
Just like last time; great lecture you have here. Again, I was surprised at just how much of this I already knew myself. I watched a documentary on A.Q. Khan & Pakistan's acquisition of the nuclear bomb a few months ago & while it was only mentioned here briefly, I was pleased to see that the information presented here with the centrifuges correlated with what I saw in that documentary beforehand flawlessly. Having studied this topic myself extensively for more than a year now during my free time, I can say that everything presented here is pretty accurate as it correlates with just about everything else that I have seen & read myself. I'd definitely recommend this to those who want to understand at least the very fundamental concepts & aspects of nuclear energy & it's various applications throughout history. I think I'll watch the rest of them as well as this is a subject that I really enjoy indulging myself in & this lecture in particular was a really nice recap for me. Also, I don't know why people are so scared about this topic in general. This lecture is simply about the applications of nuclear energy & a brief overview as to how instrumental nuclear energy has been in shaping the politics of the 20th century as well as a very _very_ brief introduction to the technical aspects of nuclear weapons & processing of nuclear materials. It's not like someone could just watch this & suddenly be able to shit out thermonuclear weapons like cupcakes while laughing irrevocably like a madman at the wet dream that they are about to absolve themselves from. You still need a hilarious amount of diligence, enterprise, & resources to create a stable nuclear program that could easily take decades to establish.
Good comment, I agree this was a terrific lecture. I wonder what Mr Bunn thinks of Stuxnet?
While I understood most of the physical and chemical processes involved (in layamens terms) I didn't understand what the ramifications of those processes were in a political sense. The more you know and all that, thanks for the vids.
6:10 - Tyler Durden makes his first appearance.
Left out the rapid cycling of fuel needed for weapons grade plutonium production. Fuel can only be left in the reactor for a little as 2 weeks or as most as 2 months. Otherwise you build up undesirable isotopes such as plutonium 238 which makes it hot enough to melt most explosives and plutonium 240 which spontaneously fissions so you'd never know when your bomb might suddenly melt-down. depletedcranium.com/why-you-cant-build-a-bomb-from-spent-fuel/
hey thank you for upload. not a very exciting video, but i am loving the free information i can gain from anywhere. gives so much insight in this subject. I really enjoy thinking of this stuff, and possibly, one day, i can share some information you i may discover. thanks again.
The worlds best quality of Uranium pitchblend is found in Canada at Cigar mine. 2nd is found in Australia 3rd in Khazakstan.
You're talking about mineral purity, which isn't really related to the subject of enrichment.
This lecture was very good. Equally as good is the lecture by Robert Muller from UC Berkeley who works in the lab where the scientists who had the idea for an atomic bombs taught and worked. kzhead.info/sun/aKaBlNeipl-EhWw/bejne.html
Love the name
Enrichment & reprocessing are inevitable. Spent fuel can't be left bumming around forever as time makes it easier to handle, steal and work with. Banning it works about as well as prohibition did.
Great lecture. I also like how he kind of sounds a little like Mr. Mackey in South Park, mkay?
Is it possible to utilize quantum tunneling for enrichment? Would this method be more practical than a gaseous centrifuge?
Quantum tunnelling applies to particles, electrons protons (neutrons?), not sure how this could be utilised for enrichment. Laser Enrichment seems to be state of the art with energy requirements lower than gas centrifuge designs. Indeed it may be too good, too easy to hide a clandestine enrichment facility phys.org/news/2016-06-laser-uranium-enrichment-technology-proliferation.html
Is there U-236 and U-237?
Is there a next step to these lectures? I really like them but 95% of it I've already read on wikipedia.
let's see, it says "Part 2/2" what should that tell you, damn genius? Here The USAF official video on Gaseous Diffusion : kzhead.info/sun/aMeAaLJxlqaJi4k/bejne.html
Gene Ruffalo Thank you for that link !
An interesting lecture on a very sensitive topic, the part about gas centrifuges and the level of technology or lack of required in particular intrigued me as an engineer prompted further reading on the subject. What I found made me whistle as a cold chill ran down my spine. There's also a great documentry on YT called 'The Atomic Trucker' about a guy who has pretty much reverse engineered all the internal workings of both weapons used in WWII kzhead.info/sun/ocuJZcmdjnVvgYE/bejne.html
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I think a good question is how often does the pit have to be taken out and be reprocessed to retain the sufficient purity due to losses from normal decay rates?
Looking at the wiki for pits(no means the most credible source but a good place to start) looks like between 10-50 year shelf life depending on storage conditions, you also have to worry about the corrosion of the material around the pit and the pit itself like other metals being susceptible to regular chemical corrosion if just left out.
***** Seems pretty reasonable. The density for the core would probably be an important part of the decay rates. I don't think exposure would be a huge factor for corrosion, maybe dissimilar metal contact corrosion?
NorthForkFisherman Apparently according the the article the wiki is quoting (fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/lanl/pubs/00818029.pdf) it's not to bad in normal dry air(creating a protective layer of dioxide like aluminum) but it's 200 times greater in humid or moist air and 100,000 times greater above 100 degrees Celsius(212 degrees Fahrenheit) so as long as you keep it dry and out of a oven the corrosion isn't a big factor.
***** I dont think he means on the outside, more the decay products that form inside the material from fission. helium gas will build up in small pockets inside the mass. I remember reading that it wasnt that big of an issue, you might want to check on that.
searchgoogleRDwolff But he said exposure which when used without "exposure too x" means exposure to the elements so I think he did mean he doesn't think exposure to the elements is a big factor. Also yes I was aware of the gas pockets well your right that was his original concern his second comment was about him not thinking leaving it out in the elements would cause significant deterioration and it sounds like in normal dry weather it doesn't.
I have a question. If the difference between plutonium and uranium is two protons how does bombarding uranium with neutrons (not protons) produce plutonium ?
cgm778 because plutonium has 2 extra protons it is stable with its neutrons. When highly enriched uranium is bombarded with free neutrons the atoms split and the protons repel each other (which is basically where the energy comes from in the bomb). A chain reaction completes the process for the fission bomb.
Plutonium has extra protons? I thought the number of proton it has makes it plutonium? Any more or any less and it wouldn't be plutonium ... or am I missing something?
I found the answer. Neutrons go through beta minus decay giving off an electron (-) and a neutrino thus leaving a proton (+). A couple of those protons merge with the uranium nucleus changing it to plutonium.
can someone help I am a little confused. if 238 has 3 additional neutrons and neutrons are what cause the chain reaction wouldn't 3 the extra neutrons be better instead of the 1 in 235? Why is it harder with 238? The only thing I can think is the nuclear force of the 3 extra neutron binds it together "stronger". Am I thinking along the right path?
238 has a stronger bond so when you hit it with a neutron it sometimes holds it and transforms into plutonium. Many neutrons will bounce off though.
Ah, no. If you hit a heavy nucleus with energetic enough neutron, it will fly apart, and there are more than one way to divide up 235 protons and neutrons to reaction products. Question is, on average how many neutrons do you get out of the reaction for every neutron you put in and are the outgoing neutrons fast enough to repeat the cycle and breed more and more neutrons. For U235 the answer is yes, for U238 the answer is no, that's pretty much all there is to it. Its not harder with U238, its outright impossible, it cannot sustain a chain reaction, it doesn't have critical mass, you can pile up as of it as you want.
Used as a tamper in the Secondary U-238 can itself undergo fission, but only after the neutron flux of the fusion reaction that the U-238 tamper is attempting to contain affects the U-238. All within the Secondary portion of the weapon.
@10.50 You could go swimming in the pool, as long as you don't dive down near the spent fuel.
No, the salts from your skin would get down there, would get irradiated, and carry the radiation to the surface.
So how fast are the centrifuges spinning at?
Apparently about 100,000rpm, with a linear speed roughly twice the speed of sound.
Could you kindly explain to me the layout of the firing mechanism? I can't understand how the smoke trails from the firing of the compression charges leave smoke trails adjacent to the main explosion, not apparently connected at top or bottom. I count roughly nine smoke trails on videos that I have seen. How do these trails get into this strange position? Thanks.
Those aren't part of the nuclear detonation, they are rockets that are launched at the moment of detonation so that the yield and other parameters of the blast can be determined from video footage afterwards.
Two answers, which each apply to many different images respectively. Someone else mentioned rockets being fired to make it easy to track the shockwave. The more disturbing answer is that cables or other metal structures near the explosion will simply be turned gaseous due to X-rays and gamma rays, basically exploding themselves. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_trick_effect
Why is it referred to as an "H-bomb" or hydrogen bomb if the only hydrogen is in the Tritium? It would seem more appropriate to call it a plutonium or uranium bomb, but I guess "P/U-bomb" both sound kind of silly.
T-Bomb would indeed be more precise.
Because the Pu and U is the fission part, which would be the Primary, is used to power the Secondary of a modern Thermonuclear Weapon. The Hydrogen part of a Hydrogen Bomb refers to the isotopes of Hydrogen(Tritium and Deuterium-latter supplied as solid Lithium Deuteride) that is used as fusion fuel in the secondary. As its bombarded by neutrons Tritium is formed. The Tritium and Deuterium then fuse to form Helium-4 a Neutron and 17.59 MeV of energy. Fusion/Hydrogen/Thermonuclear names all work IMO. Not to be confused with the Tritium Boosted Fission primaries which is the basis of every modern Thermonuclear or Hydrogen Weapon.
Actually much of the reaction does come from hydrogen isotopes, deuterium and tritium. Tritium is hard to store, but lithium will decompose into tritium in a reaction. So a more accurate name would be lithiumdeuteride bomb or fusion bomb while atom bombs could be called fission bombs or uranium/plutonium bomb, since technically all bombs are atom bombs since they involve atoms in the reaction. Nuclear bombs involve the nucleus or core of the atom so nuclear bomb (or core bomb) is much more accurate than atomic bomb. But than you end up with F-bomb (lol) for fission and fusion bomb. So I guess they didn't want to give away which isotopes they where using so they called it hydrogen bomb. Thermonuclear is also a good and technically accurate description for an H-bomb, so nuclear is atom bomb and thermonuclear is h-bomb. I think that makes the most sense, but H-bomb does have a nice ring to it.
I think the reason they call it the "H-bomb" is because they main mechanism responcible for it's explosive power is the fusion of the lightest of all elements, hydrogen (specifically deuterium isotope), while the "A-bomb" gets all its explosive power from the fission of at the time of its invention one of the heaviest of all elements, uranium or plutonium.
Some RC jet engines operate upwards of 120,000 RPM. Weight factor considered, how high do those centrifuges needs to spin, that makes them so difficult to manufacture....?
Its the exact design of their steel bearings. & the quality of the steel needed is of a quality that only a few on this Earth can manufacture. There's an excellent doc right here on KZhead about A.Q. Khan. It explains about the steel needed for the centrifuges. Its a great doc....& 100% true story. (sadly)
The centrifuges spin at supersonic rates under vacuum. They're long tubes more than what you would normally think of as a centrifuge. They also heat one end of the centrifuge to encourage convection. They need a high grade stainless steel because the UF gas is highly corrosive.
The centrifuges usually spin upwards of 100.000 RPM, but what makes them so dificult to produce is not just the speed at which they have ro revolve, but also the fact that in the inside there are tubes that tap off the different fractions of uranium hexafluoride gas. Closer to the center of the centrifuge's axis will be the lighter isotope of uranium and the heavier isotope will be farther away from the center due to centrifugal force and the difference in density between the two isotopes. It is one thing to make a cylinder spin extremely fast, but it is another thing having to pump in highly corrosive gas in the form of the uranium hexafluoride isotope mixture and tapping off the enriched isotope fractions inside the centrifuge while it is spinning at 100.000+ RPM.
there is a stupid question that has been floating around in my head. chenobyl, fukashima et al. i saw reports of molten uranium (not sure what grade) in the bottom of the remains of the reactor. could it be diluted by dropping U238 pellets or ground up control rods etc and hopefully getting it to alloy to something less dangerous and more manageable.
Good question. I think that what they had was below a critical point and just overheated to the point of being molten. Adding a neutron sink would probably reduce risks during a clean up process.
It's a bit late; it's thought that the last of the molten fuel solidified within 3 months of the explosion, after it escaped from the bottom of the reactor and invaded the basement spaces below it. They attempted to mix it with lead, boron and sand dropped from helicopters, but unfortunately most of that materials didn't get into the reactor, but piled up around th edges.
puncheex2 Which is pretty typical for a bureacratic process - too little, too late, and generally a f-up all over the place.
A comparison of bureaucracy to nuclear disaster. Creamy.
43:16 I agree: "We shouldn't incest".
Fragmentation
Im always interested in how these bombs work but that does not mean I agree that they should exist. This video is called how bombs work, not how to make one, which is a completely different thing. So I'm not worried that this video had been posted.
Why would you be worried? It's all been general knowledge for decades. Everyone knows how to make these weapons. The challenge is getting people who can build fantastically accurate machinery such as the centrifuges.
Well, really, the real challenge nowadays is political. Any country or other entity with large resources could develop a nuclear weapon without too much trouble if no one opposed it. But others _do_ oppose it, so they will apply sanctions, embargoes, etc.
Diego C. What your all forgetting is niclear weapons actually saved millions of lives... if they didnt exist instead of lil proxy wars here and there we would have full blown wars all over the place... the reason we dont have them is beacuse every country is afraid of opening up that pandoras box of nuclear strikes 👍
I get nervous watching videos like this and next a tap tap tap on my door, it's the feds and next day im on the nightly news.
I used to think the same thing but I have watched videos on how to process and make TATP as well and still no knock on the door
I'm sorry to tell you, but it will not come as a tap tap, they will not give you time to answer your door, their in and your out.
Who knows, we all might be on a blacklist right now XD
They dont care that you watched this. It would cost you trillions to make a bomb from scratch. Now if you watched a video on how to make a dirty bomb, the black suv's may swing by and ask anfew questions.
This stuff is all in textbooks and other videos. This is just the most I've seen in one video. If you deposit a $ billion in the bank right after you watch this and start searching for bomb parts, well, all bets are off.
That is good for a orion spaceship
Centrifuge Plants are in Iran in bunkers!LOL!
My lucky bowling ball is made of 100% Plutonium. Would I have any problems bringing it through customs at JFK do you think ?
I support nuclear weapons and nuclear war.
PILL BOX Good work genius, like it or not we all support the same thing it's called TAXES.
Pill Box - I'll stick to being a nimby.
Triggers have advanced the yields dramatically. I can't say I'm a fan of portable nukes but I guess we have to live with the possibility that an idiot in a cave will eventually get one and detonate it here.
4:15 Racial profiling?
Okay. Okay. Okay.
Some Claim they spin close to the speed of light, here in the USA
"some" people "claim" a lot of crazy things. It doesn't make it true or even possible.
Mr. Einstein just whacked you in the head with a very, very, very heavy physics book.
if I had one atom of U235 for every time he says "uhhh",I could build a large device of my own!
Do the dates of the filming part 1 and part 2 freak anyone else out? Way to much wink and a nod going on here.
I bet watching this flags you for the NSA
Having been born flags you for the NSA.
Can anyone translate this into North Korean lol
Then you ahhh.. need to ummm.. enrich the ahhh.. Dude seriously was driving me nuts.
"It was the 'ok's" after every other sentence that grates on my nerves. You know what I'm saying? Ya hear me?
Rather interesting way of saying: "Thank you for explaining this."
What he says here can be found in textbooks for decades. It doesn't help you to actually do it. You'd need blueprints and detailed descriptions. This guy isn't some official who has top-secret information to share...
That’s your problem buddy :p
Maybe you're just used to listening to people talk in movies and shows or reading books (highly unlikely or otherwise you wouldn't have made this comment) where people repeat sentences in a highly organised manner and which took writers months if not years to write. This is how mostly humans talk in real life!
Shit.. should had viewed it over Tor... don't want these idiots knocking on my door just because I've found this interesting! - too much information "for free" - do you really catch bad guys with this?
When Donald Trump takes his oath of office, he will be, 70-years old, 7-months old, and 7-days old. Somehow this doesn't seem like a good sign.
Minh Huynh You hit the jackpot!!!. Turn in your chips! (casino)
I don't think you need to take a close look at something as specific as his age in years, months and days at the time of taking his oath to know his presidency is a bad sign...
What does independently wealthy mean? Single male
Great but lecture delivery is too flat and non motivational.