DPRK and fusion test detection

well if anyone wants to read this worldnews.nbcnews.com... there it is 5.1 eq, China not happy, japan worried, US UN in a uproar, me saying told ya so. in the end it will be proved the test was 12kt bomb.

Originally posted by bekod
It does need to be confirmed, but it will be, and when it is ... whole new ballgame folks

What exactly does that mean?


Cheers

it seems we will know in 3 days what they, DPRK used news.yahoo.com... from the link

James Acton, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said North Korea's plutonium stockpile is small and it would be difficult and expensive for the North to produce more. But a test using highly enriched uranium, which is cheaper and easier to produce, would raise the threat that North Korea can expand its nuclear arsenal quickly.

"A highly enriched uranium test would be a significant development," he said. "Unfortunately, we don't yet have any evidence as to the device's design yield or whether it was made from plutonium or highly enriched uranium."

Finding that out is a race against time.

Joseph De Trani, former head of the National Counterproliferation Center, predicted U.S. intelligence would determine the size and composition of the nuclear device in one to three days based partly on radioactive elements released into the environment.

"Highly enriched uranium is something that degrades quickly, so you would have to collect within a 24-hour period," especially because the traces from an underground explosion will be minimal, he said.

looking in to my crystal ball, i see them saying yes it was a fusion , and bigger than first thought. here is the first test recoding from 1952 www.wired.com... from the link

The long-distance scientific recordings of the blast wave from the first hydrogen bomb test have been rediscovered in a formerly classified safe at Columbia University.

On November 1, 1952, physicists created the second fusion explosion the solar system has ever known. The first occurred around 4.5 billion years ago and ignited the ongoing fusion reaction in the sun. The second, the Ivy Mike experiment, was shorter lived and detonated on an atoll in the South Pacific. This 10-megaton blast was five times more powerful than all the explosives used in World War II combined, including the nuclear-fission bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

why make a firecracker when you can make nitro.

so just what needs to be found to tell what type of test was done, Fusion or fission? look here www.nature.com... from the link

Plutonium or uranium?
Related stories

Isotopes hint at North Korean nuclear test
North Korea's ignoble blast
North Korea's bigger blast

More related stories

Xenon, a noble gas, interacts only weakly with the environment and can thus slip unimpeded through the rocks and backfill that North Korea's scientists will have used to seal the entrance to the test tunnel. Once airborne, it can drift towards the CTBTO's monitoring stations, which are located in countries including China, Japan and Mongolia, where it can be detected using a specially developed gas chromatograph. The US Air Force also has special aircraft that can search for xenon from above, although it does not share its data openly.

Xenon data would provide strong evidence of a test and could give details about the type of nuclear weapon used, says Anders Ringbom, a researcher at the Swedish Defence Research Agency in Stockholm. Ratios of various xenon isotopes can point towards whether North Korea's latest weapon was made of plutonium or uranium, he says. Both the 2006 and 2009 tests were believed to have been conducted using plutonium, but the country is suspected of having a uranium-enrichment programme and may have developed a uranium device. A uranium bomb would be particularly worrying because, until now, North Korea has been forced to rely on its limited supply of plutonium for weapons.

we will have to wait and see.

we might not know what the DPRK used as fuel for their test

While seismic data was able to shed light on the likely yield of the underground test - estimated at 6-7 kilotons - the main hunt was for elusive radioisotopes that might confirm the type of fissile material that was used.

Experts are particularly keen to establish whether the North switched from plutonium - used in the 2006 and 2009 tests - to a new and self-sustaining nuclear weaponisation program using highly enriched uranium.

The South's state-run Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said Thursday it had analysed eight atmospheric samples apparently collected by warships and air force planes equipped with highly sensitive detection devices.

"No radioactive isotope has been found yet," the commission said in a statement.

the above is from this link www.news.com.au... and this

The detection effort is running on a very tight deadline. Xenon-133m, a metastable isotope needed to pin down the fissile material type, has a half-life of just over two days.

Proof of a uranium test would confirm what has long been suspected: that the North can produce weapons-grade uranium, doubling its pathways to building more bombs in the future.

The North has substantial deposits of uranium ore and it is much easier secretly to enrich uranium in centrifuges rather than enriching plutonium in a nuclear reactor.

I still think they would want a H bomb or a Tsar Bomb was a three-stage hydrogen bomb with a yield of about 50 megatons (Mt) a 20mt would be more like it, not that it would be in actual use , but if Russia did it, then DPRK would want to too.

Originally posted by bekod

looking in to my crystal ball, i see them saying yes it was a fusion , and bigger than first thought

No, it wasn't, and it wasn't. The "bigger" part is immediately ruled out by the seismo data. And you would have a really tough time making a 6kT thermonuke.

why make a firecracker when you can make nitro.

If all you've got is black powder, then firecrackers are what you make.

Originally posted by bekod
so just what needs to be found to tell what type of test was done, Fusion or fission? look here...

Uranium vs plutonium in your primary design does not equate to fusion vs fission. It's not related at all. And the lack of xenon so far says it's plutonium all the way, like I've been saying.

reply to post by Bedlam
I admit i do not know that much about bomb physics but i do know how to read here is a link that makes me think yes they are working on a H bomb www.diffen.com...
from the link

Nuclear weapon: One class of nuclear weapon is a fission bomb, also known as an atomic bomb or atom bomb. One class of nuclear weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which uses a fission reaction to "trigger" a fusion reaction.

so if you could , explain all this. i would welcome it

Originally posted by bekod
reply to post by Bedlam

 

I admit i do not know that much about bomb physics but i do know how to read here is a link that makes me think yes they are working on a H bomb www.diffen.com...
from the link

Nuclear weapon: One class of nuclear weapon is a fission bomb, also known as an atomic bomb or atom bomb. One class of nuclear weapon is the hydrogen bomb, which uses a fission reaction to "trigger" a fusion reaction.

so if you could , explain all this. i would welcome it

This cite doesn't say anything about uranium or plutonium primaries being one sort of weapon or another either.

Explaining all of it would take months, I expect, so let's see, where to start a tiny summary.

Ok. Some elements are what we call 'fissile', that is, they emit more neutrons per fission than they require to start fissioning. And the neutrons they emit also have to be of the right speed/temperature, or the element has to be forgiving of which neutrons will be captured and cause transmutation, and which neutrons will be captured and cause fission. There are also other gating factors on whether or not something's a useful fissile in a weapon besides neutron cross-sections and resonance bands. If, for instance, it takes too long for the fission to occur after absorbing the neutron, it'll be useless as weapons material, although it might work as a reactor fuel.

So, there are a small handful of 'fissile elements', not all of which are useful for weapons for various reasons. In practice they're all odd numbered elements, because due to the magic of physics, you gain about 1MeV of energy in fissioning an odd numbered element, for free.

This means for practical purposes, you'll generally want U235 and/or Pu239. There have been some designs that use U233, but no one does anymore.

It's my turn in the salt mine tonight, and I've got to go keep the nation safe for democracy for 12 hours, will pick this back up tomorrow evening, I'm off for three days.

reply to post by Bedlam
thank you , will look foreword for more from you, be safe watch your 6. will be reading www.world-nuclear.org... to get a better idea

It seems the type of test DPRK did will remain unknown www.channelnewsasia.com... or the ones taking the samples will not say, I still think DPRK did test a using highly enriched uranium. from the link

SEOUL: South Korean nuclear experts said Thursday they had been unable to detect any radioactive fallout from North Korea's nuclear test, confounding efforts to determine the nature of the device.

South Korean warships and air force planes equipped with highly sensitive detection devices were deployed after Tuesday's test to try and collect any traces of radioactive fallout.

The South's state-run Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said it had so far analysed eight atmospheric samples collected on land, sea and air.

"No radioactive isotope has been found yet," it said in a statement.

reply to post by bekod


Or, like I said, the absence of Xenon means it was yet another plutonium weapon, which it was expected to be.

Or they faked it.

reply to post by Bedlam
Found this when searching for air sample detection, sums it up , even if xenon 133m is found, it will be to late to tell, it is good reading anyway belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu... this is for the 2006 test, but it does show the point

Fig.4: The relative changes of ratio of xe-135 to xe-133 for plutonium- and HEUexplosion
cases ( i.e. RPu(xe135/x133)- RHEU(xe135/x133)]/RHEU(xe135/x133), where
RPu(xe135/xe133) is the ratio of xe-135 to xe-133 for plutonium explosion case;
RHEU(xe135/xe133)] is the ratio of xe-135 to xe-133 for HEU explosion case.
In conclusion, radioactive xe-133 and xe-135 were most likely detectable from the US
samples taken two days after the test. Using the activity ratio of xe135 to xe133 would be
able to identify a nuclear explosion. However, the sampling analysis of the radioactive
noble gases would be not able to distinguishing a test from a Pu-bomb and a HEU-bomb.

and we are at day 3 and still no sample, at the rate of decay might as well say oh well, but given the amount of time DPRK has has , 2009 till now or 2006 till now giving them the benefit of doubt, they do have a natural supply of Uranium and they do have centrifuges, they DPRK openly admitted to having, back in 2010 www.cnn.com... add the 2 and 2, you get nuked egg roll. Yes there is no proof to my theory, it just seems obvious.

Originally posted by Bedlam
reply to post by bekod

 

Or, like I said, the absence of Xenon means it was yet another plutonium weapon, which it was expected to be.

Or they faked it.

Right. The directors of the test wouldn't dare attempt a new design for the first shot for their new dictator, lest they be sent to the spice mines of Kessel.

Originally posted by mbkennel

Originally posted by Bedlam
reply to post by bekod

 

Or, like I said, the absence of Xenon means it was yet another plutonium weapon, which it was expected to be.

Or they faked it.

Right. The directors of the test wouldn't dare attempt a new design for the first shot for their new dictator, lest they be sent to the spice mines of Kessel.

I can't imagine how awful it would be to be stuck in that project right now. Russia's nuke program was pretty bad, I imagine NK's is far worse.

If there is a want there is a way and DPRK has the want, www.globalsecurity.org... from the link

There is a tendency to disparage the North Koreans (as well as Pakistanis, Iranians and Indians) as ignorant peons whose weapons skills are consistently derided as "primitive."

This belief is probably incorrect. North Korea's first two tests were low yield affairs, widely derided as failures, because it did not replicate the multi-kiloton yield of America's first nuclear test. It did, however, coincide with the sub-kiloton tests of the fission trigger for a hydrogen bomb. The "ignorant peon'" school tells us that North Korea's "primitive" atomic bombs are too big to put on missiles. But possibly North Korea's hydrogen bombs are easily fitted on missiles.

any one or nation that has these 3 thing could and would build the H bomb

There are three elements that are needed to build a hydrogen bomb:

The basic design elements of the hydrogen bomb have been a matter of public record for several decades. This desing confounded Edward Teller for the better part of a decade, and Soviet designers needed several years to cover the same ground, but for the past several decades the basic ideas have been well known.
The ingredients of a hydrogen bomb are largely those of an atomic bomb, along with a few other items - Tritium, special plastics, and so forth - that would come fairly readily to hand in a nuclear weapons state.
Computing power is the element that brings together the design and the materials, to simulate the accuracy with which theory has been reduced to practice. Today's home computers are roughly a million times more powerful than the computers used by the United States to produce the first hydrogen bomb.

DPRK is no exception, why show the world you got nitro, when you have firecracker in hand.

Originally posted by bekod

Using the activity ratio of xe135 to xe133 would be
able to identify a nuclear explosion. However, the sampling analysis of the radioactive
noble gases would be not able to distinguishing a test from a Pu-bomb and a HEU-bomb. and we are at day 3 and still no sample, at the rate of decay might as well say oh well

Your article is telling you that the activity ratio is HOW you distinguish a Pu from a HEU weapon. They didn't get a sample, and now it's too late to tell. No sample at all, and you might also be looking at a FAE fake nuke detonation too.

, but given the amount of time DPRK has has , 2009 till now or 2006 till now giving them the benefit of doubt, they do have a natural supply of Uranium and they do have centrifuges, they DPRK openly admitted to having, back in 2010

We gave them a big setback early on, and they didn't get a new centrifuge facility started until 2009. It takes time to get HEU out of one, it's a cascade process. Even if you start with reactor fuel rods for feedstock, it will take a while. I won't say it's not possible whatsoever that they got enough for one weapon, but you don't flick a switch and start pooping HEU out the end like frozen custard into a cone.

reply to post by bekod


So Global Security really thinks that DPRK and Mini-Kim Jong Evil are really close to a full radiation-implosion thermonuclear weapon to fit on a IRBM/ICBM?

I think that's absurd. It took a long time (1945-1959) for the USA at maximum spend to get a fusion weapon at this level (W-47), after inventing a fission weapon in 3 years and building the infrastructure.

The issue is not just computing power---even DPRK for its military program could buy a few thousand blade servers off Alibaba surplus or something and with OpenMPI and some slave programmers get a data center more powerful than LANL had in 1980.

The problem is what programs you put in. How to do them is not at all obvious, and there are many physical parameters in the fluid dynamical simulation which relate to equations of state of Special Materials in extreme situations, and these come from experimentation, and you can't look them up on wikipedia.

As far as I know, nobody has made a real multi-stage radiation-transfer implosion weapon without an extensive series of experimental tests.

And apparently there is some Deep Magic in the 'interstage' in between the primary and the secondary, even the names and technology are still completely black. There was a brouhaha a few year back about a building at Y-12 behind the fence where they used to make these parts, apparently it involved some very toxic materials plus technology/expertise which was no longer available, and so they couldn't make more to replace the ones which were degrading.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by bekod

Using the activity ratio of xe135 to xe133 would be
able to identify a nuclear explosion. However, the sampling analysis of the radioactive
noble gases would be not able to distinguishing a test from a Pu-bomb and a HEU-bomb. and we are at day 3 and still no sample, at the rate of decay might as well say oh well

Your article is telling you that the activity ratio is HOW you distinguish a Pu from a HEU weapon. They didn't get a sample, and now it's too late to tell. No sample at all, and you might also be looking at a FAE fake nuke detonation too.

They're pretty sure it was underground @1km or so from the seismic data. Where is the A in the FAE?

reply to post by mbkennel
ok you have to look at the history of the new tech DPRK
when did they get nuke power, for making electricity ?
When did they start looking at launching missiles into space?
then ask how bad do they want a one flag nation, that the north and south as one?
lets start with the nuke power
ok so it waky wida to save some time en.wikipedia.org... from the link

North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has been active in developing nuclear technology since the 1950s. Although the country currently has no operational power-generating nuclear reactor, efforts at developing its nuclear power sector continue. Moreover, North Korea is widely believed to have developed nuclear weapons; it conducted what are widely accepted to have been nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

That long still no nuke power plant?? or do they www.techwireasia.com... And then why a light water Reactor? from the link ,

North Korea says it will have a power-generating nuclear reactor “in the near future” after vowing last year to begin enriching uranium to fuel such a facility.

The country said in June that it would begin enriching uranium — a simpler and harder-to-detect method of building nuclear weapons than reprocessing plutonium, a capability it has already mastered.

That announcement on June 13, less than a month after the North conducted its second underground nuclear test in May, followed seven years of denial that it had a uranium program.

North Korea “will witness the appearance of a light water reactor power plant relying on its own nuclear fuel in the near future in the 2010s,” the official Korean Central News Agency said Monday. It did not mention uranium and provided no specific date for when such a facility might begin operating.

Building a light-water reactor, ostensibly for civilian energy purposes, gives the country a premise to enrich uranium, which at low levels can be used in power reactors, but in nuclear bombs at higher levels.

so if they have been for the last say 12 years, trying to enrich uranium, where is the power plant? Where have they been stockpiling it? yes more questions than answers.
next space race, or can they get missile in space, and not work on power plant?