Casting doubt on Indian nuclear weapon designs and yields -2

vsunder
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Post by vsunder »

Satyarthi: Here is capability, Peace Man, Peace, Pacem !!

BARC Capability
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Post by satyarthi »

Arun_S,

Let curiosity about bleeding edges not kill the cat. So mum (I guess that will still be meow in Catanese) is the word.

Regarding staged TN output, how about the contribution of the fissile spark-plug to the total yield.

P.S. the names like spark-plug, tamper-pusher remind one of the internal combustion engine. The fusion fuel is compressed by the x-ray radiation effects (either radiation pressure, or the foam plasma pressure or the tamper-pusher ablation pressure) in analogy with the piston pushing the air-fuel mixture. Then the central fissile spark-plug ignites.
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Post by satyarthi »

vsunder wrote:Satyarthi: Here is capability, Peace Man, Peace, Pacem !!

BARC Capability
I got the message! :)
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Post by Arun_S »

satyarthi wrote:Regarding staged TN output, how about the contribution of the fissile spark-plug to the total yield.
Spark plug is a fission component, thus spark plug contribution added in the fission yield, albeit in the 3rd stage.
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Post by Manne »

p_saggu wrote: 2. Why allow an ex KGB man into Dhruva and Cirus? Vladimir Putin is seen standing in BARC with D and C in the background and AK and RC flanking him. Russia gave fuel for Tarapur not for D & C.
Why not? Is it not as if he was on a magnifying-glass mission. He was visiting as a head of state of a country far ahead of us and has helped us.

But more importantly, did he visit BARC or did he visit Tarapur? The reason I ask is because the TAPS looks similar to what is shown in the picture posted on this thread.
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Post by ramana »

Op-Ed in Hindu. Looks like there is a concerted campaign to push for the deal among bureaucratic types! The big failing of the Indian political system is that it created experts only in the gov servant class or caste! And they all suffer from age having fought the NPA ghosts all their service life. They want peace in their time like Chamberlain in 1937.

Time for action on the civilian nuclear deal

M.R. Srinivasan

123 agreement specifically recognises the continuing existence of India’s strategic programme.

Abdul Kalam, former President of India, spoke recently at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai. For the first time, he openly endorsed India entering into civil nuclear energy cooperation with the United States of America and other advanced countries. In his earlier statements, he had emphasised the importance of developing thorium as a source of energy production in view of its relative abundance in India. From the time of Homi Bhabha, the long-term importance of t horium has been well recognised. But what some of the nuclear experts who have suggested that we should shun the uranium option and work solely on the thorium option have overlooked is this basic fact. An adequate programme of first generation nuclear reactors using natural or enriched uranium is an inescapable technological necessity if we are to produce plutonium in adequate quantities to launch a substantial programme of thorium utilisation.

The presently known resources of uranium can support only a programme of 10,000 mw of first generation reactors (of the heavy water type, that is, PHWR). In the projections made in the 1980s, India was expected to have installed by 2000 all of this 10,000 mw. The reality however is that we have around 4000 mw in operation. This results in a slow build-up of a plutonium inventory to achieve a significant fast reactor capacity.

And why was this so? when it was a national goal. Were not enough funds, personnel assigned or what was the reason?


We should also bear in mind that the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) will only enter into service in 2012 or thereabouts. Our first thorium-uranium-233 system is likely to go into service not earlier than 2015.

Under these circumstances, it is misleading to chart out a ‘uranium import-free’ scenario for nuclear power growth. Even more importantly, the present estimates for nuclear power are vastly more than anyone could have predicted in the 1980-1990 period. The reasons are the forbidding price of oil heading towards $135 per barrel, with no indication of any downturn. All projections fear continuance of this rising trend. Secondly, the Indian economy is growing at an annual 8+ per cent, thus demanding much more energy as an input than when it was in a growth trajectory of 3 to 4 per cent per year. Thirdly, coal, which supplies about 65 per cent of electricity production, cannot be expected to keep up that share of a rapidly growing electricity generation capacity. Even if the developed world is responsible for the historical rise in carbon emissions in the past century, the newly developing economies, including India, China, and Brazil, will have to join in the global endeavour to cut down carbon emissions.

Scientists’ stand

In my interactions with enlightened people in public life, this question is often posed: why is the nuclear scientific community so sharply divided on the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal? Such people find it difficult to come to a conclusion on whether the deal is good or bad for India. I was a member of a group of eight nuclear scientists who, at the end of December 2006, warned parliamentarians and the government about the language of the Hyde Act (which had received approval of the U.S Congress). The Act was clearly India-unfriendly and greatly damaged the well-balanced U.S.-India agreement of July 2005. The Prime Minister patiently heard the group and assured us that the genuine fears we expressed would be taken care of while negotiating the U.S.-India bilateral agreement (the 123 agreement).

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a solemn assurance to Parliament in August 2007 that India’s interests would be fully protected in the 123 agreement. After many tortuous rounds of negotiations, an agreed draft 123 emerged in the early part of 2008. It is true that the 123 draft has largely met India’s concerns but there are provisions that reflect the intent of the Hyde Act and the mother act – the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954.

Our group of nuclear scientists included three former chairmen of India’s Atomic Energy Commission, Homi Sethna, myself, and P.K.Iyengar. We have all been involved in high-level policy formulation over many years. Dr. Sethna has remained neutral while Dr. Iyenger has maintained his opposition on the ground that India’s nuclear autonomy would be compromised by the U.S.–India nuclear deal.

The reality is that the 123 specifically recognises the continuing existence of India’s nuclear strategic programme. There is confusion with regard to India’s freedom to carry out tests in future. It is useful to recall that R. Chidambaram, Chairman AEC during 1998, when the Pokhran II nuclear explosions were carried out, claimed in public that India had acquired the ability to design a whole range of nuclear weapons, based on the 1998 test results and the computer modelling competence generated in the DAE. It is strange that the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leader of the NDA coalition in power then, does not seem to be impressed by Dr Chidambaran’s claims, in spite of his having been the principal architect of Pokhran II.
{Could it be politics or having been lead astray. Also if it was a shining success how come only Padma Bhushan was awarde to him.}

Of course, under the 123 agreement read with the Hyde Act and the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954, there is a real possibility of a future administration suspending cooperation following an Indian test. No doubt the language of the 123 provides some comfort to India but nothing takes away India’s right to conduct a test if it considers it absolutely necessary, even facing the consequences of a U.S. cut-off.

Essential steps

India has to go ahead with the conclusion of the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and seek an exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers Group. These two steps are absolutely essential if the country wishes to proceed with civil nuclear cooperation with Russia and France. The relevant draft agreements are ready but both Russia and France are waiting for conclusion of these two key steps. The practice of the NSG is that each country retains its right to follow its own legislation. Russia and France do not have a requirement of suspension of cooperation pursuant to a nuclear explosive test. We may recall that Pokhran II did not adversely affect the Indo-Russian collaboration for Koodankulam. Only when we approach the NSG will we know if the exemption to India will be clean and free from any unacceptable conditions.

Recently the High Commissioner of Atomic Energy in France met me, at his request. He summed up the situation on energy by noting that it was very difficult indeed with oil prices ruling about $120 a barrel, with no evidence of any rollback. India needed to support an 8 to 10 per cent growth rate to improve the living conditions of over a billion Indians. He urged me to help in an early conclusion of the IAEA and NSG processes. Nuclear power plant suppliers in France, Russia, and Japan have serious limitations in securing supplies of equipment and special materials due to the bunching of orders.

Let us note that we can have civil nuclear cooperation with the U.S., Russia, and France and also our nuclear weapons programme if we go ahead with the IAEA safeguards agreement, NSG exemption, and bilateral agreements with these countries. If we allow the present opportunity to slip, we shall have a small nuclear power programme and our nuclear weapons. Getting civil nuclear cooperation from advanced countries in future may require our having to give up our nuclear weapons. China accesses all available nuclear power capacity worldwide. The choice is clear but the question is whether the Indian political establishment can unite on this issue for the country’s good.
I dont know what to make of this article. All I can say is he was initially agaisnt the deal and then changed. And he wants India to ignore the US and deal with Russia and France after signing the deal with US. Is French technology local to France or is it based on US patents and technology transfer? If so it could be a leap into the dark.
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Post by NRao »

Time for action on the civilian nuclear deal

M.R. Srinivasan:
It is useful to recall that R. Chidambaram, Chairman AEC during 1998, when the Pokhran II nuclear explosions were carried out, claimed in public that India had acquired the ability to design a whole range of nuclear weapons, based on the 1998 test results and the computer modelling competence generated in the DAE. It is strange that the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leader of the NDA coalition in power then, does not seem to be impressed by Dr Chidambaran’s claims, in spite of his having been the principal architect of Pokhran II.
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Post by Arun_S »

For the jan-saadharan manushya my tippani on the Sunder Sutra is hence forth:
vsunder wrote:I humbly disagree, there is a huge amount that is known open source about various aspects of POK since 1974 and upto 2007. Some of it can be obtained click-click-click but a lot cannot be obtained click-click-click and are in journals. Some can be obtained click-click-click but maybe your IT company only subscribes to Playboy and Penthouse {read- garden semi-technical magazines} and not to serious research journals{read- real physics} , so when you arrive click-click-click Cambridge Press may not let you in.

Here is a posible analysis. Suppose lets say BARC publishes a paper on Campa-Cola {read- S1} and in that paper they demonstrate certain types of competence. Now what is needed for business is Pepsi{read- 200kt real weapon} . So serious people will think. Okay so they will use the same method to understand Pepsi{read- 200kt real weapon} .

But the method they are using to understand Campa-Cola {read- S1} , will it work for Pepsi {read- 200kt real weapon} or does it have pitfalls{read- a highly treacherous non-linear curve that they have not traversed } ?

OK suppose it does work for Pepsi{read- 200kt real weapon} . Then this method was used circa 1970 and will only take BARC upto level x in the understanding. On the other hand the paper is published because nobody did analyze Campa Cola {read- S1} so far, so the study is new.

It also goes both ways. Suppose Los Alamos writes a paper on Dr. Pepper {read- a chacha test} and publishes experimental data. Then BARC uses its simulation code and says our simulation code ( Thomas-Fermi-Dirac theory numerical package is an example, a notororiously inexact theory for the purposes of doing business :wink: ) can find the eqn. of state in this particular regime of Dr. Pepper{read- a chacha test}
and it agrees with the experimental data obtained by Akella, Thirunanasambandam and Manikavachagam Pillai and Roger Bisplinghoff in 1960(the date is an actual example. A 1982 paper from BARC on eqn. of state of Thorium uses data from a 1960 paper) from Los Alamos.

BARC is not a vacuum, they publish write review articles every decade
summarizing equipment they have like Chidambaram did in 1992. He talks of the gas gun {read- confinement particle accelerator} and how much pressure it generates etc and reviews high pressure Physics since 1972 in BARC. So now one goes, how many gigapascals pressure, does this gas gun generate{read- what range of energy Injuns can realize in their partial accelerator} . Is it enough to get data in so and so range{read- can they get high enough energy for patching the Fusion stage design, or future esoteric types of weapons} ? Can this data be used to get the full shock Hugoniot etc etc. Also nobody will write this analysis up either for open click-click-click viewing.

Like Confucius say, That I know that you know, that you know, that I know... Here is what ABV said or did not say post test:

Vajpayee's statement

Also why do even need a TN, just try to minitaurize the BF ones. I am writing this from a technical standpoint {read- above is fully loaded 3rd stage, no peom/verse of empty boast}.
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This Tippini writer would like to point out that the above shows the importance of facility like CAT/Indore, and its closure has serious impact on India CAPABILITY . There must have been big Quid Pro Quo, but alas today I only see Quid and no Pro Quo :cry:
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Post by Arun_S »

NRao wrote:Time for action on the civilian nuclear deal

M.R. Srinivasan:
It is useful to recall that R. Chidambaram, Chairman AEC during 1998, when the Pokhran II nuclear explosions were carried out, claimed in public that India had acquired the ability to design a whole range of nuclear weapons, based on the 1998 test results and the computer modelling competence generated in the DAE. It is strange that the Bharatiya Janata Party, the leader of the NDA coalition in power then, does not seem to be impressed by Dr Chidambaran’s claims, in spite of his having been the principal architect of Pokhran II.
Well please see this article that I posted yesterday on the Indian Nucler thread. A very hard hitting article. Unfolding with deep viciousness of UPA on free viewpoint or worse still on anyone who opposes or can rally the opposition to the Nuke Deal.

UPA employs life support for nuclear deal
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Post by ramana »

To get a feel for the stuff involved read

Google books:

Physics of Fluids and Plasmas: Intor to Astrophysics
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Post by vsunder »

Ramana, thats a very nice book. Arnab also did a very nice thing which I think more authors should do. He insisted that the publishers sell it cheaply in India. Also Arnab three years ago had a beautiful paper in Science that examined the physics of sunspots and their dynamics and actually spent an entire afternoon patiently explaining it to me and that too on a Sunday. Appparently sunspots only appear within some latitudes and not near the Poles for example. He understood the mechanism.
I hope to meet him soon. He is very feisty and very tough on people and demands total excellence in what people write and do. Check his webpage at IISc. His stock in IISc simply zoomed after his sunspots paper in Science. Good for him!!
Last edited by vsunder on 28 May 2008 04:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Arun_S »

There's a book by Heinrich Hora, "Plasmas at High Temperature and Density: Applications and Implications of Laser-Plasma Interaction", published by Springer.
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Post by vsunder »

Arun: The book by Ajoy Ghatak, H. Hora and Eliezer is also good and focusses on other aspects not covered by Arnab's book. But there are many common topics. Most importantly I think is the problem of understanding transport in two dimensions. Its very hard. Even in one dimension it took 100 years after Riemann's fundamental work on invariants to get to Oleinik's work. Hora et al do a good job on Riemann invariants and shocks and also explain why the eqn. of state is useful to know precisely and what makes it hard to get a handle on in that regime, its because several states of matter co-exist there, gas, liquid, solid, plasma. I wish some smart young person really unlocks what is going on with these transport equations. Off course he/she will become very famous and off course so many areas will be benfited.
See instead going clicky-clicky-clicky googly wiki and tiki-tiki-tavi some of you young guys who come and post, solve some of these difficult problems. You will become famous, your country will be proud of you and you will achieve lasting fame and recognition.
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Post by achy »

Given that we need to test, I am submitting this question to experts and aam janta,

what should be the objective(s) for next round of testing ?


I think, once we understand all objectives, it will also give us a fair idea of when we will be able to test.

PS: If this has already been discussed, then can someone please point me to right place.
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Post by ramana »

ramana wrote:Lets start from fundamentals:

What is the purpose of nukes for India?

1) Deterrence
2) Retaliation
3) War termination
4) Deter BCW usage
5) What else?
Achy, Any follow-up action has to support these requirements.
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Post by shiv »

Arun_S wrote: Not correct to use Apple data to value Orange. That article is about Boosted weapons and mentions TN as a side note.

TN come in largely 2 flavor:
1.) pure 2 stage (that is is extinct species now).

2) 3 stage (I.e. 2+ stage) weapon that come in 2 sub-varieties
  • A). Cheap 3 stage TN, that use Natural U as the 3rd stage material (Recall that U238 that is 99.5% abundant in Nat-U, is fissile only when it is bombarded with very high energy neturons)

    B.) High performance 3 stage TN, with highest possible yield/mass ratio, that use conventional fissile material.
The typical yield output ratios for the the 3 stages for above types (similar to Indian wpn context) are:

.
Arun MiG 21 is also an extinct species now depending on which part of the world you are looking at. Nowhere have I seen it mentioned that the Indian test was 3 stage or even "2 plus" stage. If you show me where the Indian test was mentioned as "3 stage" I will sign an affidavit that it was a dud and upload to YouTube.

But I believe I did not explain the question I had. It relates to the possible design of the bomb that was tested in India

Leave aside boosted fission and look at the two stage bomb:

In theory the second stage can have just Lithium Deuteride or it can have Deuterirum Gas alone or it can have a Mix of Tritium and Deuterium.

Postulate 1: In an earlier link that I posted - it was said that Tritium gas imposes a cost on fissile material production in the sense that every atom of Tritium is one LESS atom of Plutonium produced.

Postulate 2: Tritium and Deuterium fuse better than Deuterium and Deuterium

Postulate 3: Using Lithium deuteride bypasses the need for using Tritium because Tritium is formed within the Lithium Deuteride when bombarded with neutrons.

Given these postulates you can have a secondary stage that is either:

a) A mixture if Deuterium and Tritium gases
or
b) Lithium Deuteride

If a lot of Tritium is found in the cavity as PK Iyengar stated could it be that the design was the mixture of gases?

Does that indicate any confirmation of the story on BR that India had found a new jinn-powered method of extracting Tritium? If jinns provide Tritium, does it mean that Plutonium production has not been compromised in favor of producing Tritium, (given that in a link talking of the 1950s, 1 atom Tritium produced = 1 atom Plutonium lost.)

The implications are enormous in many ways, because the whole problem with ALL nuclear bombs is wastage of fissile material.

Increase the efficiency and you increase the yield.

But the converse is equally true: that is you can get a bomb of moderately good yield by having an inefficient bomb that wastes a lot of material.

If you are a bomb designer who had to design a bomb that absolutely must work in war, and you were not allowed to test,would you:

1) take the route of designing the most tricky and efficient non-wasting design, or would you

2)take the route of designing a bomb that was more or less sure to work and give a fairly big yield at the cost of wasting a whole lot of precious nuclear fissile material?

If I was such a designer and I was told that I had to create and arsenal out of just 5 tests and no more testing, I would take route 2, And if Allah had provided me with enough stocks of nuclear material, I would have a credible bomb.

What I would NOT do is to constantly compare my performance with the big boys who have been allowed to practice test their designs an unlimited number of times.
Last edited by shiv on 28 May 2008 08:28, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by John Snow »

vsunder wrote:course so many areas will be benfited.
See instead going clicky-clicky-clicky googly wiki and tiki-tiki-tavi some of you young guys who come and post, solve some of these difficult problems.
.
what Sunder garu was saying is be like hillary in the below.



[img]
http://www.dispatch.com/wwwexportconten ... /05/20.gif

[/img]
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Post by amit »

Suraj wrote:I think I am being misquoted here, and perhaps people are putting too much emphasis on the numbers in my earlier post. It is not about the numbers.

I spoke specifically about fostering certain forms of economic ties with countries whose actions may affect us economically, by encouraging them to invest within our shores. A US with $100 billion of FDI invested in India would necessarily be circumspect about economic sanctions, because indiscriminate sanctioning would amount to pointing a gun at their toes and pulling the trigger.
Suraj,

I don’t know if your post was meant exclusively for me but since I did quote you I think I owe you an explanation.

Maybe what I wrote was not very clear but as far as I’m concerned I understand the context of your original post. As you say its not about numbers, what is relevant is increasing engagement with the world economy, especially the US of A. I couldn’t agree with you more on this.

IMO India is right now at a very vulnerable stage since it is much more engaged with the world economy than it was in 1998 but not massively enough engaged to ensure sanctioning nations will be hurt just as much as India would be from a sanctions regime.

Pinpointing when the inflexion point will come whereby sanctioning India would be a painful exercise for the P5 is a difficult guesswork. It would depend on a host of factors like for example how much of India’s then GDP is composed of exports, manufacturing, services etc. How much of India’s GDP growth is driven by internal markets and hence not as engaged with the world etc.

The 10-15 year timeframe or the US$3 trillion are just very broad guesswork ballpark figures just to give a sense of perspective.

IMO it’s a very difficult come to a definite conclusion, save for the fact that right now and in the medium term India would at it’s most vulnerable stage if a regime of economic sanctions are put on it for whatever reasons.

As an example China, I think, is already past the inflexion point, mainly because it’s the world’s factory and sanctioning it is just too painful.

[OT but just a few stats: China produces around 70 per cent of the world’s umbrellas; 60 per cent of the world’s buttons; percentage of US shoes made in China 72 per cent; percentage of US kitchen appliance made in China 50 per cent; percentage of US artificial Christmas trees made in China 85 per cent; percentage of Chinese goods sent to the US that end up on Wal-Mart’s shelves 9 per cent. (These stats have been randomly pulled out of the latest issue of National Geographic).]

Gurus, sorry to break the thread of fascinating posts about high-level physics gyan.
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Post by Arun_S »

Shiv guru, As an analyst one has access to public source info (which I characterized earlier as selective words dropped by people on which then DDM noise is added and the then that is further unencrypted by contextual nuanced mis/reporting/understanding).

Then there is "on the record" and "off the record" interview/discussions with big and small people related to subject matter. I for example have "on-the-record" recordings with credible personalities that I have not cared to publish to make it available in public domain, because I do not work for traditional media, as well to ensure I can first digest the meaning and purpose. But that does not make that non-open source information information illegitimate or "off the record".

Last but not the least are "off the record" parts of the discussions. In this media analyst business why do people give off the record inputs? That is to help give directions to the reporter find the right answers by finding collaborative evidence or in many cases to help arrive at the source of information. While officially not being ascribed as the source themselves. A sort of giving the "Kunjee" ("Key" booklet of school text books) answer to help the reporter get to the correct answer, instead of expending all his energy in wild goose chase or needle in the haystack search; but by proper means from whatever other source and logic

I do not have to name drop to gain credibility on this forum. Just take it for what it is worth, a value it yourself auction.

OTOH you are welcome to use "Reductio ad absurdum" to eliminate invalid answers.

As to the hypothesis of pure 2 stage weapon, there are too many data points to show its absurdity. The most important ones are as the answers to the question I asked in the last thread that assumed "45kT" is the correct declared yield. Restated below:
Now consider the following:

1. Assume 45 kT was true.

2. Why the yield was set to 45kT given that DAE knew it will have only one shot at the nuclear test series? One can get 45kT using a one stage weapon, you don’t need 2, 3 stage design for that.

3. Does 45kt by itself has any value, Political, Strategic, Military or Economic?

4. Why do countries go for a test that is few times above 45kT? Because they want to prove their capability beyond shadow of doubt. Once a country goes beyond 200kT there is no other possibility but a demonstrated TN weapons capability. (Recall that Pok-II test objective was geopolitical).

5. Scale up of 45 kT to 4.5 times higher value (200 kT) TN yield, on a highly non-linear curve.

a) How can DAE/RC claim S1 will scale to 200kT unless it has traversed the entire non-linear curve when S1 is at the bottom of the curve? (Unless the design came from somewhere else, a possibility that we can discount for this argument).
b) How do you traverse the complete non-linear path to reach the upper point? How do you achieve that mastery?
c) 45kt yield on its own is useless, and without travelling the entire curve/chain it is impossible to know how to scale up or scale down.

I will be obliged and enlightened.
Basic Nuclear Physics will also tell that 2 stage TN design (with inert mantle) cant be converted into a 3 stage design (reason is Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability). That curve for all purposes does not exist. 2 stage design is a different animal compared to 3 stage (which itself has high non-linear behavior for various smaller 3 stage parameters). So don't count any chickens on scaling up a 2 stage weapon 16 X times in air deliverable weapons envelope. And live for ever with a high volume TN weapon of 45 kT yield that doesn’t consumes much less fissile material, or a yield that cant be obtained with simpler Boosted Fission design. Sounds idiotic for a nation that gets 1 chance to test after ~24 years.
shiv wrote:Leave aside boosted fission and look at the two stage bomb:

In theory the second stage can have just Lithium Deuteride or it can have Deuterirum Gas alone or it can have a Mix of Tritium and Deuterium.

Postulate 1: In an earlier link that I posted - it was said that Tritium gas imposes a cost on fissile material production in the sense that every atom of Tritium is one LESS atom of Plutonium produced.

Postulate 2: Tritium and Deuterium fuse better than Deuterium and Deuterium

Postulate 3: Using Lithium deuteride bypasses the need for using Tritium because Tritium is formed within the Lithium Deuteride when bombarded with neutrons.

Given these postulates you can have a secondary stage that is either:

a) A mixture if Deuterium and Tritium gases
or
b) Lithium Deuteride

If a lot of Tritium is found in the cavity as PK Iyengar stated could it be that the design was the mixture of gases?
No way. A little physics will show it all comes from uncooked LiD that generated lots of Ti but the pressure/temperature dropped when happings started .

It is worthwhile to remember that Ti is the easiest gas to fuse. PK Iyengar himself in following sentences clearly say that the second stage greatly underperformed. If you think with the under performing fusion stage S1 achieved the 20kt pure fusion yield (which is 100% target for weapons designed by nations that have mastered fusion weapons), then the DEA team members is are not masters of physics but truly masters of Metaphysics.

The biggest problem with the above postulate is that that small volume cant contain useful qty of Li Gas. (Just use your calculator). The only way Ti molecule can exist there in useful mass is to put it as liquid Ti in a cryogenic thermos flask. In any case the Ti fuel in second stage makes it practically useless from deployment perspective for many reason human, radiation, and short half life. {For boosting Ti gas problem is solved a different way}
Does that indicate any confirmation of the story on BR that India had found a new jinn-powered method of extracting Tritium? If jinns provide Tritium, does it mean that Plutonium production has not been compromised in favor of producing Tritium, (given that in a link talking of the 1950s, 1 atom Tritium produced = 1 atom Plutonium lost.)

The implications are enormous in many ways, because the whole problem with ALL nuclear bombs is wastage of fissile material.
Well you got the answer to this vital question before. Assuming S1 worked the exactly as planned, the pure 2 stage design (with inert 3rd stage) can’t be scaled up (I gave the reason before), and S1 gave just 1X fusion for 1X fission yield of the primary. What saving of fissile material are we taking here?

Increase the efficiency and you increase the yield.

But the converse is equally true: that is you can get a bomb of moderately good yield by having an inefficient bomb that wastes a lot of material.

If you are a bomb designer who had to design a bomb that absolutely must work in war, and you were not allowed to test,would you:

1) take the route of designing the most tricky and efficient non-wasting design, or would you

2)take the route of designing a bomb that was more or less sure to work and give a fairly big yield at the cost of wasting a whole lot of precious nuclear fissile material?
Well the answer is design a high yield boosted fission bomb, not a 2 stage weapon that is very comples, whose Tritium has to be replaced every month because the half life decay of 12.5 will changed the designed (and tested) Ti density very applicably (for fusion non-linearity perspective) every month. Man this design is not even a scintists cup of tea, much less an engineers cup of chai, or a soldiers chai. IMO this will be a brilliantly impractical weapon design.
If I was such a designer and I was told that I had to create aned arsenal out of just 5 tests and no more testing, I would take route 2, And if Allah had provided me with enough stocks of nuclear material, I would have a credible bomb.

What I would NOT do is to constantly compare my performance with the big boys who have been allowed to practice test their designs an unlimited number of times.
As weapons designer I will first answer the first question that my master told me to do. Make a weapon that delivers the big yield I asked for. If Boost fission weapon it turns out to be so be it. I will not pander my scientific skill with a complicated TN design.

But the very fact they did try a TN design for S1 negates the validity of the hypothesis you stated above. "Reductio ad absurdum" kills wrong alternatives.

OTOH one may also look for answers in the space suggested by the on-record and off-record statement of big and small people related to subject matter, and see if it holds water.

----------------------------------------------
It is difficult to prove the fallacy of simple deductions of elementary (non-quantitiative) gyan on a matter that is almost entirely quantitative physics in nature. But I have tried above.
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Post by Arun_S »

BTW here is a good starting study material , ironically from an NPA

Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions: Matter, Energy, and Radiation Hydrodynamics
http://www.milnet.com/nukeweap/Nfaq3.html

{That just shows the power of information and power of mis-information.} Similar to some of my writings on Indian missiles but that is for Indian interests perspective. There is credible material there but only a very nuanced scholar will be able to see the subtle spin and mis-guidance, but overall largely correct & a good starting material for Grade 9 students.
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Post by ramana »

All (includes fellow admins), Please confine your comments to technical arugemets only. No disparaging individuals and institutions. Realize as the Three Musketeers said " he/they has/have done what he/they has/have done in the interest of the state." The question is quo vadis?

To me the bottom line is this deal is a non-starter for may reasons. The biggest is it constrains India without commensurate benefits.
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Warhead Design, Open Source.

Post by Anant »

Hello all,

I have been following this discussion with keen interest. I have no vested interest in this topic except as a layman. However, I did find the schematic (and by that I mean open source information) of the W88 warhead interesting. I have included a diagram of the W87 also for comparison. Gurus can see the changes and make comments. For me, one that comes to mind is the location of the tritium gas booster canister in the W88 versus the Deuterium/Tritium combo in the W87. It's amazing how complex and elegant this science is. I am a scientist but a biological one, not nuclear. Anyways, here is my 2 paise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W-88 ... detail.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:W87_Warhead.jpg
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Post by shiv »

Could someone please explain to me in simple terms if possible what is the difference between a "subcritical nuclear test", a "fizzle" and a "subkiloton test". Assume that all 3 are seismically undetectable.

Is a subcritical test a fizzle by design?

Is a subkiloton test also a fizzle of sorts by design?
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Subcritical Testing

Post by Anant »

Hi Shiv,

Here is a good primer on subcritical tests (from Lawrence Livermore Labs).

https://www.llnl.gov/str/Conrad.html

Anant
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Subkiloton Testing

Post by Anant »

Hi all,

Sorry for the monopoly in posting. There is a tantalizing tidbit for us lay people here in the conduction of subkiloton testing. The link is:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/ ... e-nuke.htm

It suggests that subkiloton tests are required to test different "triggering" devices to detonate thermonuclear bombs. Please refer to the paragraph starting with Indian Peaceful Nuclear Explosion part. Thanks.

Shiv, this link might address your "fizzle." It seems in common parlance a fizzle is a test which did not meet the yield, regardless of the intended initial yield it was supposed to deliver upon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fizzle_(nuclear_test)
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A Great Primer for H-Bomb Novices

Post by Anant »

Last post for the night. This isn't for the gurus on here but once again lay people. I am a scientist and attorney here in the US and there is a famous case on the access of secret information (i.e. the right to know versus what can be kept secret) on an article published by Progressive Magazine. Ultimately for us BR folks, Progressive magazine won. If you go to the link, there is a pdf, which explains (step by step) how a H-bomb works and what is necessary to build it. It's not something top secret (well it used to be) but people who worked on the project wanted to speak and speak they did. The article is from 1979 so I am sure things have changed, designs have changed etc, but the article has good diagrams, explanations and gives a feel for the individual components such a bomb has. If someone posted this link, I apologize. For those who love this thread like me (for the intellectual content of it), you'll enjoy reading the article.

http://www.progressive.org/?q=node/2252

Anant
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Post by satyarthi »

Anant,

Thanks for digging up that Progressive mag article. Yes it is old, and doesn't show the spark-plug, the fissile hollow cylinder, at the center, but still has a lot of historical value. Also the foam is shown inside the U238 secondary casing, which is actually supposed to be surrounding the secondary casing, basically filling the region where the X-rays bounce around.

To start the fusion in the fusion fuel, it is necessary to squeeze the fusion fuel from both sides, inside and outside. X-ray effects do the squeezing from outside, and when the spark plug starts fissioning, it does the squeezing/heating/reacting from inside. This double whammy is necessary.

One may wonder why can't the secondary be put inside the primary. One reason, besides others, is that the secondary will then be restricted in size and yield. The idea behind staged design is to use the power of the previous stage to create a bigger explosion in the next stage. But the next stage can't be big enough if it has to be "within" the previous stage. Therefore it was important to be able to separate the stages physically, but still somehow use the power of the previous stage to drive the next stage.

X-rays came to rescue, since their radiation pressure (and other effects) can be applied uniformly from all sides on any shaped secondary, and they travel at speed of light, so their job can be done before the shocks from the primary come to destroy the secondary. Also it is important that the fusion starts before the secondary casing starts fissioning, which is helped by physically separating the secondary and blocking the neutrons coming from the primary. That is the reason Teller-Ulam design is so inspired. Note that in principle you can build multiple stages using the same idea.

There is a lot of extreme physics & engineering involved in this design.
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Post by John Snow »

One may wonder why can't the secondary be put inside the primary. One reason, besides others, is that the secondary will then be restricted in size and yield. The idea behind staged design is to use the power of the previous stage to create a bigger explosion in the next stage. But the next stage can't be big enough if it has to be "within" the previous stage. Therefore it was important to be able to separate the stages physically, but still somehow use the power of the previous stage to drive the next stage.
The near analogue situation is the fitting of the turbo charger in a IC engine.
The turbo charger (of IC engine) is the initial fission which compressess the matter (plasma, fluid, high temp) there by setting up the stage for fussion conditions to occur. ( the turbo charger compresses the air even before it enters the cylinder intake) which is further compressed to high pressures, with the precaution of not reaching temp high to start knocking or misfire) which could be the cause of fizzle in the maha bum,

Notice the use of microwave owen ( in the pictures of Progressive mag)in cooking the fusion device to make it well done, stakes are hence very high in this design! :wink:

Also if the secondary is surrounded (inside) by primary that much volume is lost for compression.

I have not handled any Pu balls to claim authority to know how much to squeeze, but then I am just a DOO. (a dear)

JMTs etc
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Post by Gerard »

post from the Aug 2007 international nuke thread
In his article

http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/cardozo.html

Howard Morland has a diagram from Greenpeace of a "British H Bomb"

http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/morland_image037.gif

"The Greenpeace drawing is said to come from a British nuclear weapons manual and to depict an actual weapon. "

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/fig04.gif
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/nukes/fig05.gif

Now that thing actually looks like an American W80 warhead, not something the British fielded

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/W80-0.jpg
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/W80.html

and the Greenpeace diagram has some interesting features...

- actual dimensions
- what looks like an Oralloy (HEU) ring around the primary for full yield (200kt) version
- what appears to be removal of the secondary and insertion of the primary into the cavity to assemble the lowest yield version (30kt) Presumably removal of tritium boost gas would give tactical yield (5 kt?)
- a 'neutron lens' and 'neutron gun carriage'


This RV diagram has what appears to be a W80 as its primary

http://lanl.gov/history/hbombon/weapondev.shtml
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Post by ramana »

What should India's posture be vis a vis PRC?

PRC has its own challengers and has thus more demands on its inventory.

So quantitative parity is not required.

What about qualitative parity?

The 45 tests PRC has conducted are for weapons which are from kt to mt. Yes they are conducted in an era of unreliable and inaccurate delivery systems. So some sort of a reductuion is acceptable. But how much?


What is the minimum yield that would deter PRC?

And how to achieve that? In other words how many without renewed testing and keep in mind fissile stockpiles are modest. And if the minimum cant be delivered then go back to drawing board.

Keep in mind that the FMCO campaign is ready to roll whoever is the next US President.
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Post by satyarthi »

Arun_S wrote:For the jan-saadharan manushya my tippani on the Sunder Sutra is hence forth:
...
-------------------------------------------------------------
This Tippini writer would like to point out that the above shows the importance of facility like CAT/Indore, and its closure has serious impact on India CAPABILITY . There must have been big Quid Pro Quo, but alas today I only see Quid and no Pro Quo :cry:
That was the definitive tippani! Shows the importance of multiple commentaries on the same sutras we see in sanskrit. In fact there are commentaries upon commentaries too.

Refgarding CAT-Indore, is it same as RRCAT Indore? RRCAT seems to functioning as of yet as from this website:
http://www.cat.gov.in/

Is it slated for closure in near future?
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Post by Arun_S »

ramana wrote:What should India's posture be vis a vis PRC?

PRC has its own challengers and has thus more demands on its inventory.

So quantitative parity is not required.

What about qualitative parity?

The 45 tests PRC has conducted are for weapons which are from kt to mt. Yes they are conducted in an era of unreliable and inaccurate delivery systems. So some sort of a reductuion is acceptable. But how much?


What is the minimum yield that would deter PRC?

And how to achieve that? In other words how many without renewed testing and keep in mind fissile stockpiles are modest. And if the minimum cant be delivered then go back to drawing board.

Keep in mind that the FMCO campaign is ready to roll whoever is the next US President.
Good question and a direction that we have not spent much energy into.

My gut feeling is in current accuracy regime and with MIRV capability China will be deterred by 100-150kt weapons. Boosted fission weapon of that kind of yield will require 12-15Kg Pu each. OTOH TN type will need ~2-2.5Kg each (with 3rd stage using natural U).

----
On CAT/Indore I should have been more precise in my previous stmt. CAT is not closing, it is doing the wonderful work that it always has been doing in the past. The high power laser initiative has been disbanded. But work on table top lasers, accelerators (INDUS), biomedical applications is still going on. IOW of no strategic consequence.
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Post by ShyamSP »

ramana wrote:What should India's posture be vis a vis PRC?

PRC has its own challengers and has thus more demands on its inventory.

So quantitative parity is not required.

What about qualitative parity?

The 45 tests PRC has conducted are for weapons which are from kt to mt. Yes they are conducted in an era of unreliable and inaccurate delivery systems. So some sort of a reductuion is acceptable. But how much?


What is the minimum yield that would deter PRC?

And how to achieve that? In other words how many without renewed testing and keep in mind fissile stockpiles are modest. And if the minimum cant be delivered then go back to drawing board.

Keep in mind that the FMCO campaign is ready to roll whoever is the next US President.
Why should India posture be vis-a-vis PRC?

It may limit itself to immediate threat (Pak and PRC) than to strategic threat which could be (US, UK, France, or Russia). Projecting a country-specific threat is limiting factor. If the US places its nuclear weapons that can reach India, it is equal threat to India as PRC is.

Goal is to match both quantitatively and qualitatively. In layman math terms it should be:
Sigma Qy(India) = Sigma (Sigma Fyc * Qy(c))

Qy - quantity at y yield
Fy - country-specific threat factor at that yield level
c - nuclear weapon country
(e.g. Qnty(India) = 1 * Qnty(Pak) + 0.8 * Qnty(PRC) + 0.1 * Qnty(US)+..)

If over the next 100 years India is to produce deployable 50 designs and each design may need 2 tests and a follow-up test, India should reserve at least 100 tests before it signs to conform to any Intl NP treaties.
Last edited by ShyamSP on 30 May 2008 03:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by ramdas »

Arunji,

Would 12-15 kg RGPu guive a 100-150kt weapon such that weapon with RV weights ~500kg ?

Then, Agni V will have >8000km range with a 3 MIRV config... Sufficient production of these should then be a top priority.
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Post by ramana »

So this 100-150 kt maal has to be proofed?
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Post by Arun_S »

ramdas: Yes ~500Kg. But that does require proof test.
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Post by ramdas »

So, are we currently stuck up with 20kt stuff only, or is there reasonable confidence that a 100-150kt boisted fission weapon will work...
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Post by Arun_S »

ramdas wrote:So, are we currently stuck up with 20kt stuff only, or is there reasonable confidence that a 100-150kt boisted fission weapon will work...
I am sure they had high confidence on S1 too till the moment S1 was tested. But I believe in BARCs mastery of boosted weapon. The question is credible yield that puts fear in the mind of adversary.

Just to remind U that RgPu cant be used on weapons deployed on naval assets, due to unacceptable radiation in closed quarters..
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Post by disha »

Arun_S wrote:I am sure they had high confidence on S1 too till the moment S1 was tested. But I believe in BARCs mastery of boosted weapon. The question is credible yield that puts fear in the mind of adversary.
That is a very loaded statement. Is it megatons or few hundered kilotons? Is it 300 kt and above or @100-150 kt? Do you doubt the capability of BARC to deliver 100-150 kt? [/u]
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Post by shiv »

ShyamSP wrote:
It may limit itself to immediate threat (Pak and PRC) than to strategic threat which could be (US, UK, France, or Russia). Projecting a country-specific threat is limiting factor. If the US places its nuclear weapons that can reach India, it is equal threat to India as PRC is.

Goal is to match both quantitatively and qualitatively. In layman math terms it should be:
Sigma Qy(India) = Sigma (Sigma Fyc * Qy(c))

Qy - quantity at y yield
Fy - country-specific threat factor at that yield level
c - nuclear weapon country
(e.g. Qnty(India) = 1 * Qnty(Pak) + 0.8 * Qnty(PRC) + 0.1 * Qnty(US)+..)

If over the next 100 years India is to produce deployable 50 designs and each design may need 2 tests and a follow-up test, India should reserve at least 100 tests before it signs to conform to any Intl NP treaties.
Has nobody thought of this before? I believe the US may have done some sort of calculation like this and realized over the years that value "c" is constantly increasing.That is when it was decided that the P5 (who probably all had some such thought about deterrence) decided that proliferation was not going to be allowed to spread weapons to all sorts of uncontrollable states.

For the US "c" changed from the USSR to USSR and China, with later additions being Pakistan, Korea, India, Iraq, possibly Iran ad a few others coming up.

The validity of your math may be fine from one viewpoint, but could they be expressing thoughts that existing powers had decades ago and decided to move on and shift the goalposts?

I may be wrong here - but I have begun to suspect that the nuclear haves have upped the stakes in the game form what is commonly thought of as "MAD" (Mutually Assured Destruction) to a new degree of hegemony based on technology and we may have to go that route too.

Apart from building large reliable arsenals of city busters, the emphasis is now on stopping all others from testing so that they don't get those city busters, but using their tech superiority to design small and efficient weapons that can have tactical value in defeating the small time upstarts without causing massive global level fallout.

One of the reasons I have been talking about fizzles and subkiloton testing and subcritical testing is that fission has been notoriously ineffective and wasteful of fissile material - with the Hiroshima bomb having been only 1or 2 % efficient. Increasing efficiency has increased yield. The next logical technlogical step would be to increase efficiency and decrease yield to make small workable weapons that can take out upstart nuclear nations without resorting to city busting.

I was researching the battle of Asal Uttar in 1965 before uploading a video with the same name on YouTube and in retrospect I realize that if the Pakistanis had a couple of small and efficient theater nukes they would have been in Delhi in 1965. India would similarly have been able to wipe the slat clean of Pakis in many areas had we had the weapons and tech in 1965.

You can figure out how the Chinese could use 0.5 kiloton nukes against Indian forces or on Air bases. Consider also how attractive these ideas would seem to every small country on earth that feels threatened by the biggies.
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