Could a MOAB intitiate a fusion reaction?

Just a thought:

MOABs are really huge bombs right? I think somebody said they weigh like 21000 pounds. could one of these produce enough heat to intiate a thermonuclear reaction? and act as the trigger instead of a small fission bomb?

any ideas.....

No.

....No.

No, not at all.

Seriously, where do people get these ideas?

thanks like i said just an idea in passing

No, and I'll explain why.

The MOAB's explosion is so large because of how it explodes. It isn't a contact triger which detonates a high explosive as most conventional bombs do. What it does is it releases a highly flamable gas which is pressurized inside the bomb when it reaches a certain altitude. This gas spreads out from the bomb until the bomb hits the ground. When it hits the ground, a relativly small explosion results (in comparison with it's size) which causes the gas which had been released to burst into flame.

I don;t believe so

"The fusion of these nuclei (i.e. their joining together to release energy) - observed in the EFDA-JET tokamak device here at Culham requires temperatures in the region of 100million degrees C."

The formula to change Centigrade to Fahrenheit = (9/5 x Centigrade Temperature) + 32.



www.jet.efda.org...

and since I can't find the heat generated by a MOAB, you can use this as an example

"Because of the advanced nature of the explosive, the MOAB probably has a blast equivalent of at least 20 to 30 tons of second world war-vintage high explosives"

www.opendemocracy.net...

[Edited on 21-4-2004 by NetStorm]

ah ok i've heard of a bomb with the same description as the MOAB but i called it a fuel-air explosive. thanks for setting me straight. obviously, the MOAB woudn't work.

Now, a new question: could 21,000 lbs of a very large, powerful explosive set off a fusion bomb?
most likely not, i really don't know why i'm asking.....

That I can't help you with by stating facts I know, so I will simply theorize.

Nope.

Just kidding, I'll go more into why I believe that. 'Course, I guess you guys didn't notice the pause before I typed "just kidding"...

First reason being getting 21,000 tons of high explosives, though tough for Joe Everybody, would be a cinch for a terrorist organization. If that were capable of creating a fusion reaction, we would have seen by now a couple of nukes go off since 1945.

Also, from my understanding, you need a dense and radioactive substance in order to have a nuclear reaction, and high explosives aren't. I could be wrong, though, I haven't really done much research into nuclear weapong physics. Now that I think about it, I'm going to have to research that after I finish reading Plan of Attack, Rumsfeld's War, and The Price of Loyalty...

I think what we should do is drop a MOAB and find out. You can't know unless you try it, okay, well maybe not, but still, I'd like to see the MOAB dropped.

if i was a little bit better with 3d animation software i could probably give you a pretty good short little movie that simulated it, but alas, my skills aren't good enough.

have they even tested the MOAB? I would think they would have videos of it, if they did.

In order to understand why a MOAB will not (and has not, as they have been used), you need to understand nuclear weapons. Go and read. Learn. Afterward, I promise you, we will not make this thread go away for you, no matter how much you beg. We love seeing people feeling embarassed by their silly, uneducated questions!!

ok ur talkin bout the c&c generals version of the daisy cutter called the fuel- air bomb which is semi correct in a way theres fuel and air but not the way u think eg petrol bomb

was playin it earlier acctually they make u wanna believe that they spray fuel everywhere then ignite wid a flare of some sort good but not the way it happens


[Edited on 21-4-2004 by madmartinez]

Originally posted by NothingMakesSense
Just a thought:

MOABs are really huge bombs right? I think somebody said they weigh like 21000 pounds. could one of these produce enough heat to intiate a thermonuclear reaction? and act as the trigger instead of a small fission bomb?

any ideas.....

no, why use something that big when we have triggers for fusion bombs that are way smaller

Originally posted by IKnowNothing
I think what we should do is drop a MOAB and find out. You can't know unless you try it, okay, well maybe not, but still, I'd like to see the MOAB dropped.

A MOAB was actually tested in Florida shortly after the outbreak of Iraq War 2. It was announced to the public that they would be dropping the bomb at the military test site in Florida, so no one would think the country had just been nuked. It had a huge mushroom cloud. There is video on the net of this test, if you do a search. Se we know, without a doubt, that the bomb didn't have a fusion reaction.

I'm sure you could search a news site and find the articles which came out about it. It was shortly after that was dropped that N. Korea, probably already disturbed by the 23 tomahawks and 2 bunker busters dropped on what was believed at the time to be Saddam's head, that they decided they might be willing to open milti-lateral talks.

Originally posted by junglejake
N. Korea, probably already disturbed by the 23 tomahawks and 2 bunker busters dropped on what was believed at the time to be Saddam's head

What an expensive failure that was

They have tested it... i used to have the video of it dropping and exploding. It recently been deployed to Iraq... check it out.

The MOAB moved to Iraq

I'll post the video when i find it again.

Here's a slightly humorous comparison picture as well...

And here's the video...

The MOAB test.....

And the corresponding page:
MOAB Bomb

The test footage isnt that impressive... it's too far away to see how big it really is

Originally posted by SiRiNO

Originally posted by junglejake
N. Korea, probably already disturbed by the 23 tomahawks and 2 bunker busters dropped on what was believed at the time to be Saddam's head

What an expensive failure that was

Indeed! It shut the North Koreans up while we conducted a war! And it put Saddam in a hole!

To initiate a fusion explosin you really need a a powerful implosion to compact the reaction material. Nuclear fission is used as a trigger in some bomb.

For a good description of how the fusion bomb works and how it is initiated with a fission reaction, in plain understandable read Tom Clancy's Sum of All Fear (I know it corny and fiction, but the technical issues are well explained at the basic level.