Nuclear Weapons - The 4th generation is coming soon

Originally posted by IAF101

Another question is, The Neutron weapons; arent they usefull like a H weapon without a fission switch ?? How can such a weapon be useless to the US military when its effects so well contained ?

Neutron weapons or Enhanced radiation weapons are H bombs with enhancments to increase the amount of 1 specific type of radiation: the W70 warhead is a Neutron enhanced radiaiton warhead whilst the W71 is an X-ray enhanced wardhead.

whilst most people think that a neutron bomb is a clean bomb , the truth is much further away - it IS an H Bomb behind is after all and they go bang, and even with a sky burst (very high altitude so the sphere doesn`t contact the ground ths no mushroom) there is still the effects of prompt and residual radiation lasting along time - eg cesium doesn`t just go away overnight.

In a nutshell, the defining technical characteristic of fourth-generation nuclear weapons is the triggering - by some advanced technology such as a superlaser, magnetic compression, antimatter, etc. - of a relatively small thermonuclear explosion in which a deuterium-tritium mixture is burnt in a device whose weight and size are not much larger than a few kilograms and litres. Since the yield of these warheads could go from a fraction of a ton to many tens of tons of high-explosive equivalent, their delivery by precision-guided munitions or other means will dramatically increase the fire-power of those who possess them - without crossing the threshold of using kiloton-to-megaton nuclear weapons, and therefore without breaking the taboo against the first-use of weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, since these new weapons will use no (or very little) fissionable materials, they will produce virtually no radioactive fallout. Their proponents will define them as "clean" nuclear weapons - and possibly draw a parallel between their battlefield use and the consequences of the expenditure of depleted uranium ammunition.12

www.acronym.org.uk...

Originally posted by mad scientist


They already have made a bomb from fusion, it's called a Thermonuclear weapon. BTW, what do you base your statement on fusion being 50 years away ?
By then fusion will be IMO a ancient concept with the Zero point Field providing humanity with energy.

Back to Fusion, here's something you might like to read.

In practice, since the controlled release of thermonuclear energy in the form of laboratory scale explosions (i.e., equivalent to a few kilograms of high-explosives) at ICF facilities like NIF is likely to succeed in the next 10 to 15 years, the main arms control question is how to prevent this know-how being used to manufacture fourth-generation nuclear weapons.

www.acronym.org.uk...

[edit on 12-12-2005 by mad scientist]

the Europen Union is building the first Fusion plant on this planet in France... They said that it will take up to 50 years to make it prouce "cheap energy"... and they can't amke a bomb immediatly after it... 10 years is a good statement in my opinion...

[edit on 12-12-2005 by Figher Master FIN]

Originally posted by Figher Master FIN
the Europen Union is building the first Fusion plant on this planet in France... They said that it will take up to 50 years to make it prouce "cheap energy"... and they can't amke a bomb immediatly after it... 10 years is a good statement in my opinion...

Umm who says ? You ?

Come on don't just mouth off, where's the link ? I don't mind telling you but the US has spent far more time and money on Fusion research than the EU and especially France. To say France is going to build the first fusion reactor in 50 years is quite frankly laughable

What you're saying isn't making any sense. What has the bomb got to do with fusion power. They are separate things They don't produce any components for a pure fusion bomb in a fusion reactor, this isn't an atomic bomb

Did you read anything of what I posted

Not quite sure if this is related but I looked up nanoenergetics. I found this interesting article about the research the military is doing into increasing the effectiveness of conventional explosives.

www.technologyreview.com...

On the 2nd page there is a small bit about the possibility of making mini-nukes from this technology.

In the article they were mainly talking about nanoaluminium and super thermite, which have really small particle size, meaning they react faster and release more energy more quickly.

Hope this helps.

mad scientist - have you ever heard of the JET project?

Originally posted by Harlequin
mad scientist - have you ever heard of the JET project?

Care to elaborate Harlequin.

Mad, It is indeed true that a Nuclear plant IS being build in France but not BY France, there was a debate if it should be build in France or Japan, I believe the British are working on it, if it will take 50 year, I don't know.

Originally posted by GrOuNd_ZeRo
Mad, It is indeed true that a Nuclear plant IS being build in France but not BY France, there was a debate if it should be build in France or Japan, I believe the British are working on it, if it will take 50 year, I don't know.

Fair enough do you have a link to any information about it ?

Anyway, the original point was made by FIN that a bomb is about 60 years away because the Europeans will take 50 years to build a fusion plant and it'll take 10 years after that. This has nothing to do with what I've posted.
Fusion weapons are already a reality, they have been since the early 50's. The difference now is that they maybe able to initiate fusion in a thermonuclear device without the need for a dirty primary, a fission device.

Originally posted by mad scientist
With regards to weight. Sure you maybe able to produce 35 tonnes of TNT for a cheaper price, but you can't exactly load it into a bomb or warhead to use. Also, HE cannot initiate fusion by itself, only through the compression of a fissile pit.

But would the cost of producing Metallic Hydrogen be less than the cost of using a greater number of conventional weapons of similar or lesser yeild ??

• Z-pinch is only in its experimental form at the moment. Once a design has been worked up, then it should become far more cost effective as most things do when they are mass produced. I can't imagine it being that much more expensive than what it costs to produce a modern nuclear trigger.

True. By using a process known as nano-printing it would be possible to produce complex shapes in bulk at a fraction of the price present today. Thought this technology is not standard use and more of experimental I can say with certainity that this would be possible in the very near future.
Nano-Printing Technique

The Russians have produced a device which produces electricity from High Explosive detonation, making the device orders of magnitude smaller and lighter than the Z accelerator at the moment.

This seems to be an unlikely solution to the problem as to generate electricity from high explosives would require an explosive containment chamber inbuilt into the bomb that would capture the explosive force. That would have to be made of metal that would undoubtable be heavy. That would raise the weight making it difficult to drop such a weapon.

Originally posted by IAF101
This seems to be an unlikely solution to the problem as to generate electricity from high explosives would require an explosive containment chamber inbuilt into the bomb that would capture the explosive force. That would have to be made of metal that would undoubtable be heavy. That would raise the weight making it difficult to drop such a weapon.

Well I imagine the device would be similar to explosively pumped flux compression generator, used to power EMP weapons.

An EPFCG is a single-shot pulsed power supply; it can only be used once, and the device is destroyed in operation. An EPFCG package that could be easily carried by a person can produce pulses in the millions of amperes — tens of terawatts, exceeding the power of a lightning strike by orders of magnitude.

They require a starting current pulse to operate, which is usually supplied from a capacitor bank which has in turn been charged from batteries or the power supply of the vehicle carrying the weapon.

en.wikipedia.org...

Yes I know it's a wikipedia link, but it seems spot on.

mad scientist:

www.jet.efda.org...

external image

Inside JET - on the right is an infrared image in the presence of a plasma

the Joint European Torus or JET project , based at Culham in the UK is the worlds largest research fusion reactor - it has been operational for over 20 years now as a research reactor.

The team involved are also the ones building the one in france.

[edit on 13-12-2005 by Harlequin]

Cheers Harlequin, thanks for the information, very interesting Thought I'd throw in thios picture to compliment yours.

Cutaway diagram of the JET torus, 1982 (with man, for scale)

The new reactor in France some of you are alluding to is ITER, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The Statement that this is an exclusively French program is wrong.
ITER is an international collaboration between USA, the Russian Federation, Japan and the European Union. PROC, Brazil, ROK and India may join soon. ITER will use a hydrogen plasma torus operating at over 100 million degrees Celsius to produce 500 MW sustained for up to 500 seconds (compared to JET's maximum output of 16 MW and for only under a second at that)

The assembly is truly enormous, see if you can find the engineer in the pic in this link.

www.ofes.fusion.doe.gov...

[edit on 13-12-2005 by SkyBlueTwo]

[edit on 13-12-2005 by SkyBlueTwo]

Here is some interesting information, alleging that DU is being used to study the radiologicla effects of 4th generation nuclear weapons.

"It is shown that the radiological burden due to the battlefield use of circa 400 tons of depleted-uranium munitions in Iraq (and of about 40 tons in Yugoslavia) is comparable to that arising from the hypothetical use of more than 600 kt (respectively 60 kt) of high-explosive equivalent pure-fusion fourth-generation nuclear weapons."

www.mindfully.org...

Fourth-Generation Nuclear Weapons

First- and second-generation nuclear weapons are atomic and hydrogen bombs developed during the 1940s and 1950s, while third-generation weapons comprise a number of concepts developed between the 1960s and 1980s, e.g. the neutron bomb, which never found a permanent place in the military arsenals. Fourth-generation nuclear weapons are new types of nuclear explosives that can be developed in full compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) using inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facilities such as the NIF in the US, and other advanced technologies which are under active development in all the major nuclear-weapon states - and in major industrial powers such as Germany and Japan.11

In a nutshell, the defining technical characteristic of fourth-generation nuclear weapons is the triggering - by some advanced technology such as a superlaser, magnetic compression, antimatter, etc. - of a relatively small thermonuclear explosion in which a deuterium-tritium mixture is burnt in a device whose weight and size are not much larger than a few kilograms and litres. Since the yield of these warheads could go from a fraction of a ton to many tens of tons of high-explosive equivalent, their delivery by precision-guided munitions or other means will dramatically increase the fire-power of those who possess them - without crossing the threshold of using kiloton-to-megaton nuclear weapons, and therefore without breaking the taboo against the first-use of weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, since these new weapons will use no (or very little) fissionable materials, they will produce virtually no radioactive fallout. Their proponents will define them as "clean" nuclear weapons - and possibly draw a parallel between their battlefield use and the consequences of the expenditure of depleted uranium ammunition.12

In practice, since the controlled release of thermonuclear energy in the form of laboratory scale explosions (i.e., equivalent to a few kilograms of high-explosives) at ICF facilities like NIF is likely to succeed in the next 10 to 15 years, the main arms control question is how to prevent this know-how being used to manufacture fourth-generation nuclear weapons. As we have already seen, nanotechnology and micromechanical engineering are integral parts of ICF pellet construction. But this is also the case with ICF drivers and diagnostic devices, and even more so with all the hardware that will have to be miniaturised and 'ruggedised' to the extreme in order to produce a compact, robust, and cost-effective weapon.

A thorough discussion of the potential of nanotechnology and microelectromechanical engineering in relation to the emergence of fourth-generation nuclear weapons is therefore of the utmost importance. It is likely that this discussion will be difficult, not just because of secrecy and other restrictions, but mainly because the military usefulness and usability of these weapons is likely to remain very high as long as precision-guided delivery systems dominate the battlefield. It is therefore important to realise that the technological hurdles that have to be overcome in order for laboratory scale thermonuclear explosions to be turned into weapons may be the only remaining significant barrier against the introduction and proliferation of fourth-generation nuclear weapons. For this reason alone - and there are many others, beyond the scope of this paper - very serious consideration should be given to the possibility of promoting an 'Inner Space Treaty' to prohibit the military development and application of nanotechnological devices and techniques.

www.paricenter.com...

Chapter 3: Various ECF Schemes 31
A. Laser Drivers 32
B. Ion Beam Drivers 34
1. Heavy Ion Beams 35
a. Induction Accelerators 36
b. Radio-Frequency Accelerators 36
2. Light Ion Beams 37
C. Z-pinch 39
D. Chemical Explosives 40
E. Advanced materials manufacturing 42
1. Nanotechnology 42
2. Metallic Hydrogen 45
Chapter 4: The Prospects for Pure Fusion Weapons 47
A. Requirements for pure fusion weapons 47
B. Overall assessment of non-fission-triggered nuclear weapons 48
1. Ignition 48
2. Drivers 53
C. Overall technical prognosis for non-fission triggered nuclear weapons 54
D. Fusion power and fusion weapons - comparative requirements 56

www.ieer.org...

what i believe is a new type of electrical super high yield. im thinking it is about 1mil to 1.5 mil times the bombs in japan like in the size of the tsar bomba as in size not explosion.

I wonder if directed energy fission/fusion is a realistic use of weaponry? To take the energy of the fission reaction and direct it at an area.

originally posted by: Figher Master FIN
The 4th generation is not that close... Fusion is 50 years away from here... and another 10 untill the mankind can make bombs from it...

Wow this is seriously necroing but recent advances in Fusion tech stands to shorten that span to 10 or less.