Are Fusion Weapons Possible

Does anyone think that fusion weapons such as bombs and missiles are possible. I find it possible do to the energy released. The only problem is the plasma melting the bomb or missile. Any ideas???

dont you need a very large amount of heat to start the fusion process or something?

I think I heard somewhere (probably from my friend Charlie who is often found designing/drawing bombs in class and telling me about them, lol) that you need a high temperature for fusion to work...

Hydrogen bombs have been tested and proven to work. They are insanely powerful and kept under tight locks. Yes, high temperatures are required, but they are only needed for a split second.

It appears there is a fission-fusion hybrid:

source:
www.ieer.org...

from the site:
A large qualitative change in the nature of nuclear weapons occurred four-and-a-half decades ago when nuclear fission (the splitting of atoms) and nuclear fusion (the fusing, or joining of atoms) were combined into thermonuclear weapons, known more generally as "hydrogen bombs."

However, the site also talks about "Pure fusion weapons"
from the site:
Pure fusion weapons (as well as fusion energy) have been unattainable so far because it is very difficult to create the conditions that enable a large enough number of nuclear fusion reactions to occur and generate a net output of energy without using a fission trigger.

If we don't stop nukes or another Cold War shows up, I can almost garantee that pure fusion weapons will be developed some way or another.

Maybe not yet. Its ridiculous to say that its not possible. We clearly don't know enough about the details yet, and that is probably why it seems impossible. When I was eight years old, I would have thought a GameBoy Advance impossible, and now were programming genetics. Protien computers can't be far off. Good old fashioned logic will get us there and it just needs time.
Nothing new under the sun... just in the shadows.

Originally posted by TJ11240
Hydrogen bombs have been tested and proven to work. They are insanely powerful and kept under tight locks. Yes, high temperatures are required, but they are only needed for a split second.

actually, the heat would need to be sustained inorder to maintain fusion. if the heat didn't dissipate, what would stop a hydrogen bomb from expanding due to all the elements in the air?

as of right now, there is no way to create a contained fusion reaction. this is why we don't have fusion power. yet. in the future, i bet we will have both fusion power and weapons.

I agree totally with cmdrkeenkid. Weapons just always come first.

i reckon that some time in the future we will have fusion weapons.but they probably will come before fusion power due to the fact that most great technological advances are made while trying to create new ways of blowing stuff up.oh and icelid there are computers made of DNA now.well calculaters anyway and they cant do algebra lol

The first hydrogen bomb fueled by duterium to sustain a fusion reaction in its explosion was the "Mike" test at Eniwetok in 1952.

Mike test

I have seen an article on fusion reactors, they are very rare nad only experimental but they are like this,

they are housed in a donut shape which is some kind of heat resisant super alloy, the temperature in there is very high like suns core temp or something, there is no way to make a fusion bomb as of yet. to much energy is needed to maintain the reaction. and they also use some magnetic feild to confine the reaction.

Fusion reactions



i read this in my physics book last year and cant remeber the specs. just search google for fusion reactors im sure you will at least find one.

for more info on the fusion reactor and some more info on fusion go to the international fusion reactor experiments home page.

www.iter.org...

Hydrogen bombs are fusion. The thing is because fusion requires a great deal of heat to take place, a hydrogen bomb actually creates that with a fission explosion. Once it gets hot enough the fusion reaction takes place and the explosion becomes what is normally associated with hydrogen bombs.

I understands that Russia, US and also France are advancing in building apparatus such as powerful lasers at Ignition Facilities.
Then you have the Sandia Z-pinch machine, tokamaks, so you would think it should be possible....right?

I actually have plans for one of these types of systems (sneer if you want, I'm just sharing). More than capable of maintaining such temperatures needed (while yet not burning out the equipment). I haven't patented it yet as it just rests in a pile with a myriad of other designs that aren't altogether healthy (sic) if used improperly. But basically it's an array of colliders designed in such a manner that the plasma is continually smashing and the excess energy is funneled into the central chamber wherein the fusion reaction is stabilized/maintained with very little energy used to keep it all working.

In other words, relating to the article at hand, it IS entirely possible to use such energy in a hydrogen bomb, but that's simple in comparison to keeping the d*mn thing from exploding in the first place.

edit: It was originally meant to produce quarks, but it's also capable of sustaining reactions when set up in an array.

Originally posted by ravenspear
Hydrogen bombs are fusion. The thing is because fusion requires a great deal of heat to take place, a hydrogen bomb actually creates that with a fission explosion. Once it gets hot enough the fusion reaction takes place and the explosion becomes what is normally associated with hydrogen bombs.

Actually that isn't how it works. That is how people thought it might work in 1945 ("classical Super" ) but it doesn't. In practice it uses the initial burst of X-rays (before the heat/blast transmission---very important) to ablate the heavy surface of a cylinder or spheroid of fusion fuel surrounded by a heavy tamper. The ablation pushes the fusion fuel inward very evenly from all directions and squeezes it to high density, pressure, and yes temperature to get to self-sustaining ignition. The just plain heat from the initial fission primary is not sufficient.

Simply using them and leaving powerful analysts and enemies would ignite one hell of a fire to develop ever more.

Assuming they were possible of course

Which is why the later stuff (said to be worse than nukes) is only on paper or dark secret,think antimatter and go forward.

I think what you are asking is whether a pure fusion bomb is possible?

Scandium Tritide is extremely easy to ignite with low powered X-rays. The problem is that the fuel is blown apart so you have to address compression at the same time. The most logical thing therefore is to place a quantity of Lithium-6 and Deuterium or Scandium and Tritium etc at the heart of a conventional chemical implosion.

The simplest way is to contain the fusion material in a vessel at the heart of a Fuel Air Explosive. Upon detonation the crushing of these materials will likely cause a pure thermonuclear explosion. A man named Dr Ing.Mario Zippermayer and Dr Alfred Klemm developed such a weapon for the SS in late 1944 under Operation Hexenkessel.

Consider the problem this way:

A hydrogen atom has a single proton in its nucleus; helium has two protons and two neutrons. Building helium from hydrogen then requires three capture events and a couple of beta emission to turn two of the protons to neutrons. Messy and improbable, as protons repell each other violently. Easier to create a helium from two deuteriums; everything is there, only one capture event, and you get your energy. If you use tritium, though, you get the helium plus a free neutron, which can be captured to create another deuterium easily (no repelling force), thus making a start on the next helium atom.

Unfortunately, like hydrogen, its isotopes, deuterium and tritium are gases, making them not dense enough for easy fusion. They can be condensed into liquids (this is what Ivy/Mike did), but the refrigeration equipment is expensive & power hungry. There is another way, though. Lithium6, with 3 neutrons and 3 protons can be chemically bound to deuterium to make a form of lithium hydride. When the Li6 captures a neutron, it fissions to make helium and tritium, so now you have the deuterium (from the hydride) and the tritium, and bang. This is what was expected of Castle/Bravo, but...

Lithium comes naturally as Li7; Li6 is only .08% (8 parts per 10,000). Like U235 Lithium has to be enriched in order to increase the amount of Li6 available. It is as expensive to do that as it is to enrich uranium. So the Lithium in Bravo was only 40% Li6. The Li7 was expected to be inert.

But it wasn't. Physicists had overlooked that with neutron capture, Li7 would fission into helium, tritium and a neutron. It was as reactive as the Li6, a little more so in fact. Thus Castle/Bravo was 150% higher in energy output than expected; instead of 6 MT, it output 15 MT.

As to the argument that it's not "pure" hydrogen fusion, the response is, "who cares?" The energy released is far higher than any other reaction occurring on Earth, with a lot less hassle and quite simpler mechanisms than would be required for purity.

So the answer to the OP is, yes, of course, fusion has been ongoing (in bombs) since about 1952. Every atomic power has mastered it to some extent.