I vote "crazy"

formatting link

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin
Loading thread data ...

Not new news, the USA contemplated that in the late 50s:

formatting link
(Alberta, Canada!)

formatting link

No one ever learns...

John :-#(#

Reply to
John Robertson

We didn't just "contemplate" it, we actually DID a test. It worked, too, except for the "little" problem that the gas was radioactive! Want some nice radioactive gas PIPED inside your house? No thanks!

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Article is factually incorrect. The Hiroshima bomb used no such detonator, it was a simple gun trigger, which required no such spatially synchronized detonation wave, and it was the world's first dirty bomb. It was a very sim ple fool proof detonation design that they didn't even bother to test befor e the bombing. The idiots who threw it together admitted as much by stating they just needed to get rid of a bunch of enriched uranium because they no longer had use for it.

This is the exploding bridge wire:

formatting link
bridgewire_detonator

Luis Alvarez again!

This is very simple and low tech. The Chinese proposal does not use a nucle ar detonation, which at most would just create a huge methane gas leak they couldn't contain. Dunno how they call this thing rapid fire when it needs to be hauled back to the surface after each and every shot. It's going to t ake them forever to fracture any capacity out of that highly compressed roc k.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

Surprised that lunatic Teller wasn't involved ...

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

It might be preferable to the cocktail of chemicals used by conventional fracking - although it strikes me as more likely to create earthquakes. And without the sand to hold the cracks open it may be short lived.

Nuclear detonator is more like a very sophisticated precision shaped charge designed to cause an implosion or shockwave and has no fissile radioactive components itself. I can't see it being cost effective.

You pride yourself on thinking outside the box but are quick to condemn a method that might work because it was NIH.

Although ISTR the USA did try considering this in the past but with a nuke still attached. They thought about but decided against nuking the moon too which Carl Sagan was involved with computing the effects of.

formatting link

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown
Reply to
Martin Brown

You obviously didn't read a single word of the article.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

The Fat Man plutonium bomb used a lot of exploding-wire detonators to shape the spherical implosion. They use krytron tubes to discharge capacitors into the detonators. That was the Nagasaki bomb.

But it's hard to imagine storing a rock-shattering amount of energy in capacitors.

I wonder if chemical explosives work at that depth/pressure.

It's interesting that China has so much ng. They will probably find a way to harvest it.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

The issue is joules of energy stored in capacitors, fracturing kilotons of rock. The numbers aren't good.

We live in a world if insane "scientific" press releases, a tiny fraction of which will ever work.

A nuke will fracture kilotons of rock for sure. A capacitor, not so much.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

r, it was a simple gun trigger, which required no such spatially synchroniz ed detonation wave, and it was the world's first dirty bomb. It was a very simple fool proof detonation design that they didn't even bother to test be fore the bombing. The idiots who threw it together admitted as much by stat ing they just needed to get rid of a bunch of enriched uranium because they no longer had use for it.

ng-bridgewire_detonator

clear detonation, which at most would just create a huge methane gas leak t hey couldn't contain. Dunno how they call this thing rapid fire when it nee ds to be hauled back to the surface after each and every shot. It's going t o take them forever to fracture any capacity out of that highly compressed rock.

All of that is covered in the exploding bridgewire wiki article. It was mor e than just an implosion. It was a spherical lens that shaped the shock wav e with sphere center the focal point. This is an idea originally conceived by VonNeumann.

I believe the idea is to concentrate the shock wave energy onto a very smal l cross-sectional area, and this creates the fracture.

Reply to
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred

If there's no preparation for the end of oil/gas reserves, lots of desperate measures are to be expected (with diminishing returns). China, though, seems to be preparing. They'll have rail and shipping options to all the last sources of fuel. We won't.

Reply to
whit3rd

No idea, I'll wait to see if it works. I also didn't know that hydraulic fracking doesn't work deeper down. Too much pressure? George H.

Reply to
George Herold

The Fat Man plutonium bomb used a lot of exploding-wire detonators to shape the spherical implosion. They use krytron tubes to discharge capacitors into the detonators. That was the Nagasaki bomb.

But it's hard to imagine storing a rock-shattering amount of energy in capacitors.

I wonder if chemical explosives work at that depth/pressure.

It's interesting that China has so much ng. They will probably find a way to harvest it.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

The issue is joules of energy stored in capacitors, fracturing kilotons of rock. The numbers aren't good.

We live in a world if insane "scientific" press releases, a tiny fraction of which will ever work.

A nuke will fracture kilotons of rock for sure. A capacitor, not so much.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

Incidentally the only surefire way to destroy well-hardened ICBM silos is to detonate ground bursts of say 100 kiloton weapons in a diamond or star pattern, at a range of maybe 500 yards from the silo, fracture the rock, and implode/crush the silo inwards from all sides at the pinch point

Reply to
bitrex

actually the exact pattern may be different from that (and probably classified), has to be timed so the incoming warheads detonate approximately simultaneously without fratriciding even though they're all arriving at slightly different times, very slightly but still significant wrt how fast detonation and fireball development of the other warheads happens

Reply to
bitrex

Why do you vote crazy?

Is it because unlike USA they are not using an actual atomic bomb, (just some left over, high explosive, initiator charges)

Or is it beacue they are fracking?

--
  When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.
Reply to
Jasen Betts

If you think the exploding bridge wires were resonsible for the compression of the plutonium pit you are mistaken.

The bridge wires were the detonators that started the high explosive off the HE compresses the pit.

They're puttins surplus high explosive down the hole. probably recycled from some de-commsioned nukes,

--
  When I tried casting out nines I made a hash of it.
Reply to
Jasen Betts

You don't actually have to demolish the missile to put it "effectively" out of action. You just have to shake it pretty well. The angular alignment of these things have to be INSANELY accurate to hit a target 7000 miles away. I actually have no idea how they survey these things in to the required accuracy. Our Minuteman missiles have windows in the guidance system, and they install something on the walls of the silo, something like a mirror and a transit. They sight through the guidance platform to the mirror and back and use that to align the guidance platform. How they set up the mirror and transit base to the required accuracy is the mystery. Some kind of super surveying technique.

So, anyway, if a single nuclear explosion was within a few thousand feet of a silo, the missile would rock and get out of alignment. Then, you might be able to still launch and hit the general target region, but I'd assume your aim would be off by miles.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Elson

Don't think so, in addition to the accelerometers on modern incarnations of the Minuteman III they have highly accurate gyrocompasses on the inertial platform that do a compare/contrast of saved vs. current data and re-align it just before launch. so long as the missile knows its starting point, destination point, and direction of true north accurately enough it can get where it needs to go just fine, and if the silo is intact enough such that the door still opens and the firing/ignition chain still works it's gonna go.

This mirror/transit business sounds very old-fashioned like on the Minuteman I, maybe.

One hit two or three thousand feet away is unlikely to be good enough to put a Minuteman III silo out of action, one hit within 3-500 yards, probably. They're not super-hardened to the degree that you'd need the "crusher pattern" AFAIK

Reply to
bitrex

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.