ABSTRACT

Nuclear fission is induced by bombarding sub atomic particles with the atomic nucleus of radioactive substance; this process induces a chain reaction wherein neutrons are released along with humungous heat energy; the neutrons emitted which increases exponentially until the substance is decayed completely. Further these neutrons can trigger yet more fission events. Energy released in fission is in form of kinetic energy of fission fragments and Electromagnetic radiations (gamma rays); in nuclear reactor this energy is converted to heat by collision of particles and gamma rays with reactor walls and working fluid. Typical fission event releases about 200MeV of energy (eV is kinetic energy gained by an unbound electron when accelerated to a potential difference of 1 volt) Nuclear fusion is the process of joining of 2 atomic nucleuses to form a single heavy nucleus; it involves absorption of large quantities of energy. The ratio of atomic mass to mass number is lower the heavier the nucleus is this is known as mass defect. So fusion of lighter nuclei into heavier nuclei leads to loss of mass but not nucleons this loss of mass is released as energy in accordance with E=mc2; the difference in mass which we find is the binding energy; for a molecule to be broken to its atoms we require such an energy that accounts for the difference in mass which we earlier called it as mass defect. In Atom bomb, the Explosive energy is got by fission reaction alone. This is triggered by 2 types Gun-type wherein subatomic particles are shot to fissile material (supercritical mass); other one is by compressing fissile material core so that due to instability the reaction is triggered. In Hydrogen bomb, the Explosive energy is got by fusion process alone. This is triggered by using fission reaction to compress and heat the fusion fuel. This bomb consists of 2 sections, 1 is fission section wherein reaction triggers to give enough energy for the fusion process to take place and the other one is fusion section wherein fusion fuel is concentrated.

NUCLEAR FISSION PHYSICAL OVERVIEW:

Mechanics:
Nuclear fission can occur without neutron bombardment, as a type of radioactive decay. This type of fission (called spontaneous fission) is rare except in a few heavy isotopes. In engineered nuclear devices, essentially all nuclear fission occurs as a "nuclear reaction" a bombardmentdriven process that results from the collision of two subatomic particles. In nuclear reactions, a subatomic particle collides with an atomic nucleus and causes changes to it. Nuclear reactions are thus driven by the mechanics of bombardment, not by the relatively constant exponential decay and half-life characteristic of spontaneous radioactive processes. Many types of nuclear reactions are currently known. Nuclear fission differs importantly from other types of nuclear reactions, in that it can be amplified and sometimes controlled via a nuclear chain reaction. In such a reaction, free neutrons released by each fission event can trigger yet more events, which in turn release more neutrons and cause more fission. The chemical element isotopes that can sustain a fission chain reaction are called nuclear fuels, and are said to be fissile. The most common nuclear fuels are 235U (the isotope of uranium with an atomic mass of 235 and of use in nuclear reactors) and 239Pu (the isotope of plutonium with an atomic mass of 239). These fuels break apart into a bimodal range of chemical elements with atomic masses centering near 95 and 135 u (fission products). Most nuclear fuels undergo spontaneous fission only very slowly, decaying instead mainly via an alpha/beta decay chain over periods of millennia to eons. In a nuclear reactor or nuclear weapon, the overwhelming majority of fission events are induced by bombardment with another particle, a neutron, which is itself produced by prior fission events. Nuclear fission is normally the result of the nuclear excitation energy produced when a fissionable nucleus captures a neutron. This energy, resulting from the neutron capture, is a result of breaking of the attractive nuclear force acting between the neutron and nucleus. It is enough to deform the nucleus into a double-lobed "drop," to the point that nuclear fragments exceed the distances at which the nuclear force can hold two groups of charged nucleons together, and when this happens, the two fragments complete their separation and then are driven further apart by their mutually repulsive charges, in a process which becomes irreversible with greater and greater distance.

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

The liquid drop model of the atomic nucleus predicts equal-sized fission products as a mechanical outcome of nuclear deformation. The more sophisticated nuclear shell model is needed to mechanistically explain the route to the more energetically-favorable outcome, in which one fission product is slightly smaller than the other.

ENERGETICS: Input:

The fission of a heavy nucleus requires a total input energy of about 7 to 8 MeV to initially overcome the strong force which holds the nucleus into a spherical or nearly spherical shape, and from there, deform it into a two-lobed ("peanut") shape in which the lobes are able to continue to separate from each other, pushed by their mutual positive charge, in the most common process of binary fission (two positively-charged fission products + neutrons). Once the nuclear lobes have been pushed to a critical distance, beyond which the short range strong force can no longer hold them together, the process of their separation proceeds from the energy of the (longer range) electromagnetic repulsion between the fragments. The result is two fission fragments moving away from each other, at high energy. About 6 MeV of the fission-input energy is supplied by the simple binding of the neutron to the nucleus via the strong force, however in many fissionable isotopes this amount of energy is not enough for fission. If no additional energy is supplied by any other mechanism, the nucleus will not fission, but will merely absorb the neutron, as happens when U-238 absorbs slow neutrons to become U-239. The remaining energy to initiate fission can be supplied by two other mechanisms: one of these is the kinetic energy of the incoming neutron, which is increasingly able to fission a fissionable heavy nucleus as it exceeds a kinetic energy of one MeV or more (so-called fast neutrons). Such high energy neutrons are able to fission U-238 directly. However, 3

this process cannot happen to a great extent in a nuclear reactor, as too small a fraction of the fission neutrons produced by any type of fission have enough energy to directly fission U-238.

Output:
Typical fission events release about two hundred million eV (200 MeV; eV is kinetic energy gained by an unbound electron when accelerated to a potential difference of 1 volt) of energy for each fission event. By contrast, most chemical oxidation reactions (such as burning coal or TNT) release at most a few eV per event, so nuclear fuel contains at least ten million times more usable energy per unit mass than does chemical fuel. The energy of nuclear fission is released as kinetic energy of the fission products and fragments, and as electromagnetic radiation in the form of gamma rays; in a nuclear reactor, the energy is converted to heat as the particles and gamma rays collide with the atoms that make up the reactor and its working fluid, usually water. When a uranium nucleus fissions into two daughter nuclei fragments, energy of ~200 MeV is released. For uranium-235, typically ~169 MeV appears as the kinetic energy of the daughter nuclei, which fly apart at about 3% of the speed of light, due to Coulomb repulsion. Also, an average of 2.5 neutrons is emitted with a kinetic energy of ~2 MeV each. The fission reaction also releases ~7 MeV in prompt gamma ray photons. The total prompted fission energy amounts to about 181 MeV or ~ 89% of the total energy which is eventually released by fission over time. The remaining ~ 11% is released in beta decays which have various half-lives. A kilogram of uranium-235 (U-235) converted via nuclear processes releases approximately three million times more energy than a kilogram of coal burned conventionally (7.2 1013 joules per kilogram of uranium-235 versus 2.4 107 joules per kilogram of coal).

Product nuclei and binding energy:

In nuclear fission events the nuclei may break into any combination of lighter nuclei, but the most common event is not fission to equal mass nuclei of about mass 120; the most common event (depending on isotope and process) is a slightly unequal fission in which one daughter nucleus has a mass of about 90 to 100 u and the other the remaining 130 to 140 u. Unequal fissions are energetically more favorable because this allows one product to be closer to the energetic minimum near mass 60 u (quarter of average fissionable mass), while the other nucleus with mass 135 u is still not far out of the range of the most tightly bound nuclei.

Chain Reaction:

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

Several heavy elements, such as uranium, thorium, and plutonium, undergo both spontaneous fission, a form of radioactive decay and induced fission, a form of nuclear reaction. Elemental isotopes that undergo induced fission when struck by a free neutron are called fissionable; isotopes that undergo fission when struck by a thermal, slow moving neutron are also called fissile. All fissionable and fissile isotopes undergo a small amount of spontaneous fission which releases a few free neutrons. These neutrons which escape has a mean lifetime of about 15 minutes before decaying to protons and beta particles. However, neutrons almost invariably impact and are absorbed by other nuclei in the vicinity long before this happens. If enough nuclear fuel is assembled in one place, or if the escaping neutrons are sufficiently contained, then these freshly emitted neutrons outnumber the neutrons that escape from the assembly, and a sustained nuclear chain reaction will take place.

Nuclear Reactor:
Critical fission reactors are the most common type of nuclear reactor, in critical reactors neutrons produced are used to induce further fission events. Reactors that produce engineered but not selfsustaining fission reactions are known as sub critical fission reactors. Critical fission reactors are intended for 3 primary purposes, they are

Power reactors are intended to produce heat for nuclear power, either as part of a generating station or a local power system such as a nuclear submarine. Research reactors are intended to produce neutrons and/or activate radioactive sources for scientific, medical, engineering, or other research purposes. Breeder reactors are intended to produce nuclear fuels in bulk from more abundant isotopes. The better known fast breeder reactor makes 239Pu (a nuclear fuel) from the naturally very abundant 238U (not a nuclear fuel).

Radioactivity control in a reactor:

The power output of the reactor is adjusted by controlling how many neutrons are able to create more fission. Control rods are the neutron absorbers that help in absorbing neutrons released in the process and ensuring lesser number of neutrons is available for further fission process; so pushing the control rods deeper into the reactor will reduce its power output, and extracting the rods will increase it. In some reactors, the coolant also acts as a neutron moderator. A moderator increases the power of the reactor by causing the fast neutrons that are released from fission to lose energy and become thermal neutrons. Thermal neutrons are more likely than fast neutrons to cause fission, so more neutron moderation means more power output from the reactors. If the coolant is a moderator, then temperature changes can affect the density of the coolant/moderator and therefore change power output. A higher temperature coolant would be less dense, and therefore a less effective moderator. In other reactors the coolant acts as a poison by absorbing neutrons in the same way that the control rods do. In these reactors power output can be increased by heating the coolant, which makes it a less dense poison. Nuclear reactors generally have automatic and manual systems to scram the reactor in an emergency shutdown. These systems insert large amounts of poison (often boron in the form of boric acid) into the reactor to shut the fission reaction down if unsafe conditions are detected or anticipated. The normal fission process also produces iodine-135, which in turn decays with a half-life of under seven hours to new xenon-135 (xenon-135 is a good neutron absorber). Thus, if the reactor is shut down, iodine-135 in the reactor continues to decay to xenon-135 to the point that makes re-starting the reactor more difficult, for a day or two, than when first shut down (this temporary state is the "iodine pit."), the extra xenon-135 is "burned off" by transmuting it to xenon-136 (not a neutron poison), within a few hours the reactor may become unstable as a result of such a

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

"xenon burn off (power) transient," and then rapidly become overheated, unless control rods are reinserted in order to replace the neutron absorption of the lost xenon-135. Failure to properly follow such a procedure was a key step in the Chernobyl disaster.

Components of a nuclear reactor:

Nuclear fuel is the material that can be consumed by fission or fusion to harness nuclear energy. The most common fissile nuclear fuels are Uranium 235 (235U) and Plutonium 239 239 ( Pu). Plutonium-238 and some other elements are used to produce small amounts of nuclear power by radioactive decay in radioisotope thermoelectric generators and other atomic batteries. Light nuclides such as 3H (tritium) are used as fuel for nuclear fusion. Nuclear reactor core of a typical pressurized water reactor or boiling water reactor are pencilthin nuclear fuel rods, each about 12 feet (3.7 m) long, which are grouped by the hundreds in bundles called "fuel assemblies". Inside each fuel rod, pellets of uranium, or more commonly 7

uranium oxide, are stacked end to end. Also inside the core are control rods, filled with pellets of substances like boron or hafnium or cadmium that readily capture neutrons, this is a typical water moderated reactor. There are also graphite moderated reactors in use which uses solid graphite for neutron moderator and water as coolant; this was the type of reactor involved in Chernobyl disaster. Neutron moderator is a medium that reduces the speed of fast neutrons, thereby turning them into thermal neutrons capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction involving uranium-235. Commonly used moderators are, light water (75% of Worlds rectors), solid graphite (20%) and heavy water (5%). The first couple of collisions with the moderator may be of sufficiently high energy to excite the nucleus of the moderator. Such a collision is inelastic. As the energy of the neutron is lowered, the collisions become predominantly elastic, i.e., the total kinetic energy and momentum of the system is conserved. It is not impossible for fast neutrons to cause fission, just much less likely. The newly-released fast neutrons, moving at roughly 10% of the speed of light, must be slowed down or "moderated," typically to speeds of a few kilometers per second, if they are to be likely to cause further fission in neighboring 235U nuclei and hence continue the chain reaction. Neutron poison is a substance with a large neutron absorption cross-section in applications, such as nuclear reactors. Some of these poisons deplete as they absorb neutrons during reactor operation, while others remain relatively constant. Some of the fission products may also act as nuclear poison (xenon-135); with such products the chain reactions may come to standstill, this may lead to decrease in efficiency and cause instability in the reactor. During operation of a reactor the amount of fuel contained in the core decreases monotonically. If the reactor is to operate for a long period of time, fuel in excess of that needed for exact criticality must be added when the reactor is fueled. The positive reactivity due to the excess fuel must be balanced with negative reactivity from neutron-absorbing material (control rods). Coolant is a fluid which flows through a device to prevent its overheating, transferring the heat produced by the device to other devices that use or dissipate it. An ideal coolant has high thermal capacity, low viscosity, is low-cost, non-toxic, and chemically inert, neither causing nor promoting corrosion of the cooling system. Coolant can either keep its phase or can undergo a phase change. Gases: Air is the common form of coolant in this phase. Hydrogen is used as a highperformance gaseous coolant. Its thermal conductivity is higher than of all gases, it has

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

high specific heat capacity, and low density and therefore low viscosity, which is an advantage for rotary machines susceptible to wind age losses. Inert gases are frequently used as coolants in gas-cooled nuclear reactors. Helium is the most favored coolant due to its low tendency to absorb neutrons and become radioactive. Liquids: The most common coolant is water. Its high heat capacity and low cost makes it a suitable heat-transfer medium. It is usually used with additives, like corrosion inhibitors and antifreeze. Sodium or sodium-potassium alloy are frequently used; in special cases lithium can be employed. Another liquid metal used as a coolant is lead, in e.g. lead cooled fast reactors, or a lead-bismuth alloy. Some early fast neutron reactors used mercury. There are coolants in liquid gases, Nano fluids, and solids which are extensively used for various other purposes.

Control rod is a rod made of chemical elements capable of absorbing many neutrons without undergoing fission by themselves. Control rods are usually combined into control rod assemblies typically 20 rods for a commercial Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) assembly and inserted into guide tubes within a fuel element. The number of control rods inserted and the distance by which they are inserted can be varied to control the reactivity of the reactor. Silver-indium-cadmium alloys, generally 80% Ag, 15% in, and 5% Cd, are common control rod material for pressurized water reactors. It has to be encased in stainless steel to prevent corrosion in hot water. Boron is another common neutron absorber. The wide absorption spectrum makes it suitable as a neutron shield. Boron carbide is used as a control rod material in both pressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors. Hafnium, Dysprosium titanate, Hafnium diboride are some of the control rod material which are also used. Steam turbine is a mechanical device that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam, and converts it into rotary motion. To maximize turbine efficiency the steam is expanded, generating work, in a number of stages. These stages are characterized by how the energy is extracted from them and are known as either impulse or reaction turbines. Impulse turbine has fixed nozzles that orient the steam flow into high speed jets which is directed to bucket shaped blades mounted along the circumference of the rotor. In Reaction turbine, the rotor blades themselves are arranged to form convergent nozzles. Steam is directed onto rotor by the fixed vanes of stator; the nozzle effect (increase in velocity) is got by the set of fixed vanes. The steam then changes direction and increases its speed relative to the speed of the blades.

NUCLEAR FUSION
INTRODUCTION: Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy. Large-scale thermonuclear fusion processes, involving many nuclei fusing at once, must occur in matter at very high densities and temperatures. The fusion of two nuclei with lower masses than iron generally release energy while the fusion of nuclei heavier than iron absorb energy. Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in all active stars. Synthetic fusion as a result of human actions has also been achieved, although this has not yet been completely controlled as a source of nuclear power. In the laboratory, successful nuclear physics experiments have been carried out that involves the fusion of many different varieties of nuclei, but the energy output has been negligible in these studies. In fact, the amount of energy put into the process has always exceeded the energy output. Uncontrolled nuclear fusion which is been carried out as resulted in deliberate explosion. These explosions have always used the heavy isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium (H-2) and tritium (H-3), and never the much more common isotope of hydrogen (H1), sometimes called "protium". Overview:

Fusion of deuterium with tritium creating helium-4, freeing a neutron, and releasing 17.59 MeV of energy

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

Generally, when dealing with elements lighter than iron, the lower the ratio of atomic mass (total mass of protons and neutrons) to mass number (total number of protons and neutrons) is the heavier the nucleus is. This is known as mass defect. So fusion of lighter nuclei into heavier nuclei leads to loss of mass even though no nucleons are lost. This lost mass is released as energy in accordance with E=mc2. Research into controlled fusion, with the aim of producing fusion power for the production of electricity, has been conducted for over 50 years. It has been accompanied by extreme scientific and technological difficulties, but has resulted in progress. It takes considerable energy to force nuclei to fuse, even those of the lightest element, hydrogen. This is because all nuclei have a positive charge (due to their protons), and as like charges repel, nuclei strongly resist being put too close together. Accelerated to high speeds (that is, heated to thermonuclear temperatures), they can overcome this electrostatic repulsion and get close enough for the attractive nuclear force to be sufficiently strong to achieve fusion. The fusion of lighter nuclei, which creates a heavier nucleus and often a free neutron or proton, generally releases more energy than it takes to force the nuclei together; this is an exothermic process that can produce self-sustaining reactions. Energy released during fusion process is large compared to chemical reaction, because the binding energy that holds the nucleus together is large compared to energy that holds electrons to the nucleus. The hierarchy of energy levels given out in different processes is, Nuclear fission<Nuclear fusion<collision of matter and antimatter

Requirements:

At short distances the attractive nuclear force is stronger than the repulsive electrostatic force. As such, the main technical difficulties for fusion is getting the nuclei close enough to fuse.

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A substantial energy barrier of electrostatic forces must be overcome before fusion can occur. At large distances two naked nuclei repel one another because of the repulsive electrostatic force between their positively charged protons. If two nuclei can be brought close enough together, however, the electrostatic repulsion can be overcome by the attractive nuclear force, which is stronger at close distances. The electrostatic force, on the other hand, is an inversesquare force (the electrostatic force between the 2 nuclei is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them), so a proton added to a nucleus will feel an electrostatic repulsion from all the other protons in the nucleus. The electrostatic energy per nucleon due to the electrostatic force thus increases without limit as nuclei get larger. The net result of these opposing forces is that the binding energy per nucleon generally increases with increasing size, up to the elements iron and nickel, and then decreases for heavier nuclei. If two nuclei are brought together, as they approach each other, all the protons in one nucleus repel all the protons in the other. Not until the two nuclei actually come in contact can the strong nuclear force take over. Consequently, even when the final energy state is lower, there is a large energy barrier that must first be overcome. It is called the Coulomb barrier. Using deuterium-tritium fuel, the resulting energy barrier is about 0.01 MeV. The (intermediate) result of the fusion is an unstable 5He nucleus, which immediately ejects a neutron with 14.1 MeV. The recoil energy of the remaining 4He nucleus is 3.5 MeV, so the total energy liberated is 17.6 MeV. This is many times more than what was needed to overcome the energy barrier. If the energy to initiate the reaction comes from accelerating one of the nuclei, the process is called beam-target fusion; if both nuclei are accelerated, it is beam-beam fusion. If the nuclei are part of plasma near thermal equilibrium, the process is called thermonuclear fusion. The other effect is quantum tunneling (quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle tunnels through a barrier that it classically could not surmount because its total kinetic energy is lower than the potential energy). The nuclei do not actually have to have enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier completely. If they have nearly enough energy, they can tunnel through the remaining barrier. For this reason fuel at lower temperatures will still undergo fusion events, at a lower rate. Possibilities of confinement: Gravitational confinement: One force capable of confining the fuel well enough is gravity. The mass needed, however, is so great that gravitational confinement is only found in starsthe least massive stars capable of sustained fusion are red dwarfs, while brown dwarfs are able to fuse deuterium and lithium if they are of sufficient mass. Magnetic confinement: Electrically charged particles (such as fuel ions) will follow magnetic field lines. The fusion fuel can therefore be trapped using a strong magnetic field.

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

Inertial confinement: A third confinement principle is to apply a rapid pulse of energy to a large part of the surface of a pellet of fusion fuel, causing it to simultaneously "implode" and heat to very high pressure and temperature. If the fuel is dense enough and hot enough, the fusion reaction rate will be high enough to burn a significant fraction of the fuel before it has dissipated. To achieve these extreme conditions, the initially cold fuel must be explosively compressed. Inertial confinement is used in the hydrogen bomb, where the driver is X-rays created by a fission bomb. Inertial confinement is also attempted in controlled nuclear fusion, where the driver is a laser, ion, or electron beam, or a Z-pinch.

Production methods: Muon-catalyzed fusion: Muon-catalyzed fusion is a well-established and reproducible fusion process that occurs at ordinary temperatures. It was studied in detail by Steven Jones in the early 1980s. It has not been reported to produce net energy. Net energy production from this reaction cannot occur because of the energy required to create muons, their 2.2 s half-life, and the chance that a muon will bind to the new alpha particle and thus stop catalyzing fusion. Hot fusion: In hot fusion, the fuel reaches tremendous temperature and pressure inside a fusion reactor or nuclear weapon (or star).The methods in the second group are examples of nonequilibrium systems, in which very high temperatures and pressures are produced in a relatively small region adjacent to material of much lower temperature. Todd Rider demonstrated that all such systems will leak energy at a rapid rate due to bremsstrahlung produced when electrons in the plasma hit other electrons or ions at a cooler temperature and suddenly decelerate.

Astrophysical chain reactions:

The most important fusion process in nature is the one that powers stars. The net result is the fusion of four protons into one alpha particle, with the release of two positrons, two neutrinos (which changes two of the protons into neutrons), and energy, but several individual reactions are involved, depending on the mass of the star. For stars the size of the sun or smaller, the proton-proton chain dominates. In heavier stars, the CNO cycle is more important. Both types of processes are responsible for the creation of new elements as part of stellar nucleosynthesis.

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The proton-proton chain dominates in stars the size of the Sun or smaller.

NUCLEAR WEAPON Introduction:

The first nuclear weapons were gravity bombs, such as this "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. The first fission (atomic) bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of TNT. The first thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 10,000,000 tons of TNT.

Types of nuclear weapons: Atomic bombs: The explosive energy is got through the nuclear fission reactions alone. Such fission weapons are commonly referred to as atomic bombs or A-bombs.

The two basic fission weapon designs

In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is assembled into a supercritical massthe amount of material needed to start an exponentially growing nuclear chain reactioneither by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another (the gun method) or by compressing a sub-critical sphere of material using chemical explosives to many times its original density (the implosion method). The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former and only the latter approach can be used if the fissile material is plutonium. 15

A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of less than a ton of TNT upwards of 500,000 tons (500 kilotons) of TNT. Hydrogen bombs: The explosive energy is got through the nuclear fusion reaction alone. Such fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as H- bombs, as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium). However, all such weapons derive a significant portion, and sometimes a majority, of their energy from fission (including fission induced by neutrons). Unlike fission weapons, there are no inherent limits on the energy released by thermonuclear weapons. Only six countriesUnited States, Russia, United Kingdom, People's Republic of China, France and Indiahave conducted thermonuclear weapon tests. Working principle:

The basics of the TellerUlam design for a hydrogen bomb: a fission bomb uses radiation to compress and heat a separate section of fusion fuel.

Thermonuclear bombs work by using the energy of a fission bomb to compress and heat fusion fuel. In the Teller-Ulam design, which accounts for all multi-megaton yield hydrogen bombs, this is accomplished by placing a fission bomb and fusion fuel (tritium, deuterium, or lithium deuteride) in proximity within a special, radiation-reflecting container. When the fission bomb is detonated, gamma and X-rays emitted first compress the fusion fuel, then heat it to thermonuclear temperatures. The ensuing fusion reaction creates enormous numbers of high-

Concepts of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion

speed neutrons, which can then induce fission in materials not normally prone to it, such as depleted uranium. Each of these components is known as a "stage", with the fission bomb as the "primary" and the fusion capsule as the "secondary". In large hydrogen bombs, about half of the yield, and much of the resulting nuclear fallout, comes from the final fission of depleted uranium.

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REFERENCES

en.wikipedia.org. The Nuclear Physics and Reactor theory Handbook. electricalandelectronics.org tutorvista.com