Dr Chidambaram is delivering a talk on Pokharan II tests on Nov 12th at 11.15AM. The venue is Faculty hall at IISc. he will be mainly dealing with the controversy raised by the western scientists regarding the yields of the tests.
PS: people interested better come early as the hall is small and will get filled up rather quickly.
Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
And how do you propose we go back to Nov 12th?Originally posted by yugandhar:
Dr Chidambaram is delivering a talk on Pokharan II tests on Nov 12th at 11.15AM. The venue is Faculty hall at IISc. he will be mainly dealing with the controversy raised by the western scientists regarding the yields of the tests.
PS: people interested better come early as the hall is small and will get filled up rather quickly.
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member_4589
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Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Did you never hear of the great Indian time Machine that DRDO developed? the prototype is rusting becuase the A/C pump motor is still listed as dual use technology and Yashwant sinha is negotiating for Isreal to sell a second hand piece to us , after unkil approves the transfer.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
oooooppsssss
that was a typo
the date is 12th December not Nov12th.
okay here is the full e-mail notice Pokhran-II Tests:
Scientific Issues
by
Dr. R. Chidambaram
Principal Scientific Adviser to the
Government of India
Date: 12 December 2002
Time: 11:15 AM
Venue: Faculty Hall
ALL ARE WELCOME
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
India successfully conducted a series of nuclear tests at Pokharan in May
1998. The tests were widely welcomed in India, with little sign of the
Gandhian pacifism that was a strong element in Indian policy in the early
years after the country's independence in 1947. Popular opinion appeared
to be strongly behind the tests, as a demonstration of India's ability to
compete scientifically and militarily with the world's most powerfulnations.
But doubts regarding the yield of the tests were raised.
What was the yield of the devices tested?
Was the yield lower than those stated?
Was the whole issue of doubting the yield of the tests a policy followed
by the west to make us reveal more on these test?
To obtain answers to these FAQs,
Listen to Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram
Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram completed his PhD at the Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore and joined the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in
1962. He took over as Director BARC in 1990. He was Chairman, Atomic
Energy Commission and Secretary to the Govt. of India in the Department of
Atomic Energy from February 1993 to November 2000. He is one of Indias
distinguished experimental physicists and the research groups established
by him in BARC in the fields of High Pressure Physics and Neutron
Crystallography are regarded among the best in the world. Dr. Chidambaram
played a leading role in the design and execution of the Peaceful NuclearExplosion experiment at Pokhran in 1974 and also led the DAE team, which
designed the nuclear devices and carried out the Pokhran tests in May 1998
in cooperation with the DRDO. He is currently serving as Principal
Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India.
that was a typo
the date is 12th December not Nov12th.
okay here is the full e-mail notice Pokhran-II Tests:
Scientific Issues
by
Dr. R. Chidambaram
Principal Scientific Adviser to the
Government of India
Date: 12 December 2002
Time: 11:15 AM
Venue: Faculty Hall
ALL ARE WELCOME
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
India successfully conducted a series of nuclear tests at Pokharan in May
1998. The tests were widely welcomed in India, with little sign of the
Gandhian pacifism that was a strong element in Indian policy in the early
years after the country's independence in 1947. Popular opinion appeared
to be strongly behind the tests, as a demonstration of India's ability to
compete scientifically and militarily with the world's most powerfulnations.
But doubts regarding the yield of the tests were raised.
What was the yield of the devices tested?
Was the yield lower than those stated?
Was the whole issue of doubting the yield of the tests a policy followed
by the west to make us reveal more on these test?
To obtain answers to these FAQs,
Listen to Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram
Dr. Rajagopala Chidambaram completed his PhD at the Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore and joined the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in
1962. He took over as Director BARC in 1990. He was Chairman, Atomic
Energy Commission and Secretary to the Govt. of India in the Department of
Atomic Energy from February 1993 to November 2000. He is one of Indias
distinguished experimental physicists and the research groups established
by him in BARC in the fields of High Pressure Physics and Neutron
Crystallography are regarded among the best in the world. Dr. Chidambaram
played a leading role in the design and execution of the Peaceful NuclearExplosion experiment at Pokhran in 1974 and also led the DAE team, which
designed the nuclear devices and carried out the Pokhran tests in May 1998
in cooperation with the DRDO. He is currently serving as Principal
Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
If somebody can post the summary of the talk it would be appreciated, kaushal
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Better still, if someone can manage to talk to Dr.C for a few minutes, mention BRF and get a copy of his speech for posting here...that would be something. In the process, we can also invite him to talk to us here or write for us.Originally posted by Kaushal:
If somebody can post the summary of the talk it would be appreciated, kaushal
If meeting him is not possible, we can try to get his address and write to him. I am more than willing to write that letter if someone can get his address.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
I will attend - subject to my getting a place in that hall.
If you see this msg yugandhar pls email me at shiv@bharat-rakshak.com
If you see this msg yugandhar pls email me at shiv@bharat-rakshak.com
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
All in all, a gripping talk. Any technical errors probably mine.
First, the talk was organised by an informal group called "Prasthutha" in the IISc. This group was started by a group of concerned individuals at the IISc who were stung by the criticism of India and Indian technology that was aired at a meeting in the IISc shortly after Pok-2, and decided to form a group to counter this.
Chidambaram started by talking about where "power" derives from in the modern day spoke of two key areas in which domination is likely to be exercised in the future - namely Intellectual Property Rights and Technology Denial regimes. Technology is the currency of power.
He then put up a slide of Venn diagram of Indian nuclear technology vs other nations (a picture that has been linked before from BR) where Indian nuclear tech is an island not interlinked to the US and USSR unlike the tech of China/UK/France/Israel/SA and Packeeland.
Pre 1974, people used to talk of the peaceful uses of nuclear explosions. It was said that fission bombs would be good for oil explotration, and fusion for digging/excavation. That is because fusion reactions can be tailored to produce only neutrons and little fallout that can get into water supply (see footnote 1) But ALL talk of peaceful use of nuclear weapons ended abruptly after India's 1974 test. It appeared that all the "peaceful uses" tests were cover for military testing.
Chidambaram stressed that the 1974 test was of a design that was "not weaponised". He said it (and it has come from the proverbial horse's mouth here, despite what Carey Sublette may allege) that the Pokhran 1 yield was 12-13 kT. He then put up a slide showing a quote from a 1994 paper by Wallace estimating the yield at 10-15 kT, and showing a quote from a Wallace paper of 1998 saying that Pokhran 1 was 5 kT.
The 1998 tests were for weapons and all the tests were designed with devices that had all the necessary bells and whistles for delivery for military use.
One slide showed the photos of the 5 sites in Pokhran after the 1998 tests.
They were, as reported:
Test 1: A two stage thermonuclear bomb (H-bomb) with a primary trigger that used a fusion boosted fission reaction using an "X-ray radiation implosion" and a secondary fusion device. The total yield was calibrated to 45 kT. Quoting Chidambaram's words (I took notes ) "The same design can go to 200 kT without any problem"
Why 45 kT? Khetolai village is 5 km away.
Test 2: 15 kT: This was essentially the same as the 1974 device, but this time all the necessary size and other requirements for use as a weapon were incorporated in the design. This shaft was 1 km away.
Tests 3: 0.2 kT - this shaft was a few km away.
Tests 4 and 5: May 13 1998: 0.5 and 0.3 kT.
Why simultaneous tests? Because adjacent shafts and equipment would be damaged by even a single big test.
He gave some technical details about the depth of the tests conducted, crater formation and seismic estimates. If you place a nuke deep enough, you will see nothing on the surface. If it is too shallow, there will be a huge crater and radiation will leak. If it is just right, there will be a small subsidence crater and no leak. (see footnotes 2 and 3)
About the seismic signatures, he said what has been said often on this forum. The Pokhran site has not been calibrated by seismologists. He also said that seismologists have been assuming Pokhran rock to be like Kazakh rock, but it is more like the rock in Nevada, and this has been shown in a Current Science paper by Sikka of Oct 25 2002. He showed a slide of the Gauribidanur seismic signatures of 1974 and 1998, which showed mb values of 4.9 and 5.4 respectively.
All the test sites were carefully monitored for a radioactive leak and there was none. In fact, in response to a question, he pointed out that Pokhran village water supply has been annually monitored for radioactivity since 1974, and another prof (name?) in the audience said that anyone is welcome to take the trouble of checking water samples from Pokhran villages for radioactivity if they have any doubt.
All yields were estimated by various methods, apart from accelerometers and close in instruments, the cavities were sampled to reveal the particular radioactive products that had been formed. Apparently there are telltale signs here - because in a fusion bomb the amount of neutrons released has effects on the local rock and caused certain compounds to be formed depending of the energy and dosage of radiation. The levels of those compounds eg 54Mn tell tales about the reaction and Dr RC stressed confidently and repeatedly that all the calculations and predictions for yield were validated and the yields were as reported AND as predicted.
Dr Chidambaram repeated time and again that computer simulation and the level of development in physics had made it easier to simulate and predict a lot of stuff and leave less to chance. He said that in the last 10-20 years there has been a vast increase in the amount of knowledge regarding "equations of state" of elements. In the 50s and 60s these were not known, and computers were very slow. If it took 3 months to do a particular calculation, it was easier to conduct a test, check the results and then tweak the computer to fit the reults. He showed a very interesting graph of how the number of tests conducted by the US dropped with each jump in computer number crunching ability. RC said that a LOT of the work was done on computer and a lot of the computer simulations were verified against available data even before the tests. The overall impression I got was that fast computers have played a major role in the success of the tests.
RC dwelt at some length on what he called the "cho-toos" - the "little ones" among the tests. Why 0.2 kT? He went into some technical detail here (see footnote 4) and said that after the CTBT came into effect France and China were not confident of computer simulation of devices less than 0.2 kT, (unlike the US), so they called for a modification in the CTBT requirements so that tests uoto 0.2 kT could be done, For that technical reason it was thought necessary to test a 0.2 kiloton device in Pokhran.
RC ended the talk by saying that he jokes with his American friends - your bombs are 1992 vintage - when you stopped testing, ours are 1998 vintage. He also said that a great deal of work has been done (in India) since 1998, but did not specify.
Footnotes:
1)Fusion produces one neutron for 14 MEV release of energy, while fission produces relatively fewer - 3-4 neutrons for 200 MEV release of energy. Fisson is energy intensive and fusion neutron intensive.
2)To get the right depth to test at a Chidambaram spoke of "scaling". If you want no crater, you have to put your device as deep as 150 meters per kT of yield. He quoted the formula Y1=xY, where Y is the yield and he said that if you assume x=1=USA dry hard rock, then the value for Pokhran is 0.5. It happens that Pokhran is a good place to test nukes.
3)Chidambaram said that if 1 Kg of Pu is fully used up in a nuke - the yield will be 16KT (less if less is used up, of course). If 1 Kg of Deuterium is used up fully - you get a yield of 80kT, and if 1 kg of Lithium Deuteride is fully used up in a fusion bomb the yield will be 50 kT.
4)In fissile material k=population of neutrons in present generation/population of neutrons in the previous generation. In a runaway chain reaction - eg a nuclear bomb k>1. In a steady state nuclear reaction k=1, and in storage k<1.
CTBT allowed for tests as long as k<1. That was fine for the US as it was actually able to do undetectable subkiloton tests or simulate on computer. France and China objected and wanted th elimit raised to 0.2 kT below which they had not develped teh ability to validate at the time of signing.
5)The high point of my day came as soon as RC entered the room. I was the only chap in the front row and he sat next to me. I introduced myself and mentioned BR. He said "Oh yes, I used to look at the site about 2 years ago - maybe I ought to look at it again. I asked him about Wallace and his fudgig and he remembered and mentioned my name during his talk when he showed his slide on Wallace's changing statements.
First, the talk was organised by an informal group called "Prasthutha" in the IISc. This group was started by a group of concerned individuals at the IISc who were stung by the criticism of India and Indian technology that was aired at a meeting in the IISc shortly after Pok-2, and decided to form a group to counter this.
Chidambaram started by talking about where "power" derives from in the modern day spoke of two key areas in which domination is likely to be exercised in the future - namely Intellectual Property Rights and Technology Denial regimes. Technology is the currency of power.
He then put up a slide of Venn diagram of Indian nuclear technology vs other nations (a picture that has been linked before from BR) where Indian nuclear tech is an island not interlinked to the US and USSR unlike the tech of China/UK/France/Israel/SA and Packeeland.
Pre 1974, people used to talk of the peaceful uses of nuclear explosions. It was said that fission bombs would be good for oil explotration, and fusion for digging/excavation. That is because fusion reactions can be tailored to produce only neutrons and little fallout that can get into water supply (see footnote 1) But ALL talk of peaceful use of nuclear weapons ended abruptly after India's 1974 test. It appeared that all the "peaceful uses" tests were cover for military testing.
Chidambaram stressed that the 1974 test was of a design that was "not weaponised". He said it (and it has come from the proverbial horse's mouth here, despite what Carey Sublette may allege) that the Pokhran 1 yield was 12-13 kT. He then put up a slide showing a quote from a 1994 paper by Wallace estimating the yield at 10-15 kT, and showing a quote from a Wallace paper of 1998 saying that Pokhran 1 was 5 kT.
The 1998 tests were for weapons and all the tests were designed with devices that had all the necessary bells and whistles for delivery for military use.
One slide showed the photos of the 5 sites in Pokhran after the 1998 tests.
They were, as reported:
Test 1: A two stage thermonuclear bomb (H-bomb) with a primary trigger that used a fusion boosted fission reaction using an "X-ray radiation implosion" and a secondary fusion device. The total yield was calibrated to 45 kT. Quoting Chidambaram's words (I took notes
) "The same design can go to 200 kT without any problem" Why 45 kT? Khetolai village is 5 km away.
Test 2: 15 kT: This was essentially the same as the 1974 device, but this time all the necessary size and other requirements for use as a weapon were incorporated in the design. This shaft was 1 km away.
Tests 3: 0.2 kT - this shaft was a few km away.
Tests 4 and 5: May 13 1998: 0.5 and 0.3 kT.
Why simultaneous tests? Because adjacent shafts and equipment would be damaged by even a single big test.
He gave some technical details about the depth of the tests conducted, crater formation and seismic estimates. If you place a nuke deep enough, you will see nothing on the surface. If it is too shallow, there will be a huge crater and radiation will leak. If it is just right, there will be a small subsidence crater and no leak. (see footnotes 2 and 3)
About the seismic signatures, he said what has been said often on this forum. The Pokhran site has not been calibrated by seismologists. He also said that seismologists have been assuming Pokhran rock to be like Kazakh rock, but it is more like the rock in Nevada, and this has been shown in a Current Science paper by Sikka of Oct 25 2002. He showed a slide of the Gauribidanur seismic signatures of 1974 and 1998, which showed mb values of 4.9 and 5.4 respectively.
All the test sites were carefully monitored for a radioactive leak and there was none. In fact, in response to a question, he pointed out that Pokhran village water supply has been annually monitored for radioactivity since 1974, and another prof (name?) in the audience said that anyone is welcome to take the trouble of checking water samples from Pokhran villages for radioactivity if they have any doubt.
All yields were estimated by various methods, apart from accelerometers and close in instruments, the cavities were sampled to reveal the particular radioactive products that had been formed. Apparently there are telltale signs here - because in a fusion bomb the amount of neutrons released has effects on the local rock and caused certain compounds to be formed depending of the energy and dosage of radiation. The levels of those compounds eg 54Mn tell tales about the reaction and Dr RC stressed confidently and repeatedly that all the calculations and predictions for yield were validated and the yields were as reported AND as predicted.
Dr Chidambaram repeated time and again that computer simulation and the level of development in physics had made it easier to simulate and predict a lot of stuff and leave less to chance. He said that in the last 10-20 years there has been a vast increase in the amount of knowledge regarding "equations of state" of elements. In the 50s and 60s these were not known, and computers were very slow. If it took 3 months to do a particular calculation, it was easier to conduct a test, check the results and then tweak the computer to fit the reults. He showed a very interesting graph of how the number of tests conducted by the US dropped with each jump in computer number crunching ability. RC said that a LOT of the work was done on computer and a lot of the computer simulations were verified against available data even before the tests. The overall impression I got was that fast computers have played a major role in the success of the tests.
RC dwelt at some length on what he called the "cho-toos" - the "little ones" among the tests. Why 0.2 kT? He went into some technical detail here (see footnote 4) and said that after the CTBT came into effect France and China were not confident of computer simulation of devices less than 0.2 kT, (unlike the US), so they called for a modification in the CTBT requirements so that tests uoto 0.2 kT could be done, For that technical reason it was thought necessary to test a 0.2 kiloton device in Pokhran.
RC ended the talk by saying that he jokes with his American friends - your bombs are 1992 vintage - when you stopped testing, ours are 1998 vintage. He also said that a great deal of work has been done (in India) since 1998, but did not specify.
Footnotes:
1)Fusion produces one neutron for 14 MEV release of energy, while fission produces relatively fewer - 3-4 neutrons for 200 MEV release of energy. Fisson is energy intensive and fusion neutron intensive.
2)To get the right depth to test at a Chidambaram spoke of "scaling". If you want no crater, you have to put your device as deep as 150 meters per kT of yield. He quoted the formula Y1=xY, where Y is the yield and he said that if you assume x=1=USA dry hard rock, then the value for Pokhran is 0.5. It happens that Pokhran is a good place to test nukes.
3)Chidambaram said that if 1 Kg of Pu is fully used up in a nuke - the yield will be 16KT (less if less is used up, of course). If 1 Kg of Deuterium is used up fully - you get a yield of 80kT, and if 1 kg of Lithium Deuteride is fully used up in a fusion bomb the yield will be 50 kT.
4)In fissile material k=population of neutrons in present generation/population of neutrons in the previous generation. In a runaway chain reaction - eg a nuclear bomb k>1. In a steady state nuclear reaction k=1, and in storage k<1.
CTBT allowed for tests as long as k<1. That was fine for the US as it was actually able to do undetectable subkiloton tests or simulate on computer. France and China objected and wanted th elimit raised to 0.2 kT below which they had not develped teh ability to validate at the time of signing.
5)The high point of my day came as soon as RC entered the room. I was the only chap in the front row and he sat next to me. I introduced myself and mentioned BR. He said "Oh yes, I used to look at the site about 2 years ago - maybe I ought to look at it again. I asked him about Wallace and his fudgig and he remembered and mentioned my name during his talk when he showed his slide on Wallace's changing statements.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Thanks Shiv, I've been logging on every hour or two to see when you had something to post. 
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Excellent summary! Clarifies a lot of points wrt yield and radioactive leaks. This ought to be archived. Did he mention anytime that all devices were Plutonium based or there were some Uranium devices as well?
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shashidhar
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Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Shivji,
5) is beutiful.Hats off to you.BR deserves it.And you desrve it as well.
The particularly intersting part about the speech for me will be-that Indian programme being an island.Does that mean we have a different tech,different trajectory?That raises new possibilities-both good and bad.However carefully preserving the 'Indianess' of the technology while learning new stuff can be beneficial.Uncle's recent clamour about establishing closer links with Indian nuclear and space tech stems from two things
1)Learn what Indians have.
2)Curtail their programme.
However India may benefit from such exchanges as well.
I think US knows Indian potential and Uncle doesn't waste time on these matters.All in all supports BR view on POK-2.
thanks for the write up.
5) is beutiful.Hats off to you.BR deserves it.And you desrve it as well.
The particularly intersting part about the speech for me will be-that Indian programme being an island.Does that mean we have a different tech,different trajectory?That raises new possibilities-both good and bad.However carefully preserving the 'Indianess' of the technology while learning new stuff can be beneficial.Uncle's recent clamour about establishing closer links with Indian nuclear and space tech stems from two things
1)Learn what Indians have.
2)Curtail their programme.
However India may benefit from such exchanges as well.
I think US knows Indian potential and Uncle doesn't waste time on these matters.All in all supports BR view on POK-2.
thanks for the write up.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Incidentally the phot described as Shakti 1 on RCs slide has a crater with a kind of bent/broken bridge like thing across. The photo appeared familiar tome, but I was unable to find it on FAS usingthe link below.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/nuke/shakti-pix.htm
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/india/nuke/shakti-pix.htm
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Interestingly RC explained part of the overlap between the Russian and US programs by saying that after the USSR broke up they were giving away (presumably to the US/West) weaponized, shaped plutonium cores without bothering to melt them. The shape gives a lot of information on how it is done.Originally posted by shashidhar:
The particularly intersting part about the speech for me will be-that Indian programme being an island.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Thanks Shiv. It validates the BRM paper on Indian tests written by Vsunder, Calvin and me.
BTW this is second time you got to rub shoulders with high and mighty- Last one was when APJ Kalam autographed his two books for you!!!
And RC reads BR that is walking on air for those of us who made it possible. Are you still in touch or what?
BTW this is second time you got to rub shoulders with high and mighty- Last one was when APJ Kalam autographed his two books for you!!!
And RC reads BR that is walking on air for those of us who made it possible. Are you still in touch or what?
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Thank you for the detailed account of the talk , shiv.
There remains considerable skepticism even among the Indian cognoscenti about the yield. Both Bharat Karnad (p.406-409, Nuclear weapons and Indian security) and Ashley Tellis (p.511, 'It is certainly difficult to believe Indian scientists have mastered the art of terminating fusion burn precisely in order to obtain reliably low yields - without any prior testing of advanced designs ')have expressed it each in their own way.
Of course BK questions the strategy of 'simultaneous detonation and the use of a boosted fission trigger in the primary when a simple fission bomb would have done just as well and further , the incorporation of the spark plug as fallback trigger, thereby increasing the overall design complexity indicating the testing scheme was part and parcel of theVajpayee Government strategy. This strategy allowed for only a severely limited number of tests sufficient for ND to proclaim India a NWS'.
Kaushal
There remains considerable skepticism even among the Indian cognoscenti about the yield. Both Bharat Karnad (p.406-409, Nuclear weapons and Indian security) and Ashley Tellis (p.511, 'It is certainly difficult to believe Indian scientists have mastered the art of terminating fusion burn precisely in order to obtain reliably low yields - without any prior testing of advanced designs ')have expressed it each in their own way.
Of course BK questions the strategy of 'simultaneous detonation and the use of a boosted fission trigger in the primary when a simple fission bomb would have done just as well and further , the incorporation of the spark plug as fallback trigger, thereby increasing the overall design complexity indicating the testing scheme was part and parcel of theVajpayee Government strategy. This strategy allowed for only a severely limited number of tests sufficient for ND to proclaim India a NWS'.
Kaushal
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Kaushal one point. Neither BK or AT are weapon designers nor do they know enough of programs in other countries. If you read the ref. articles listed in the BRM paper which the authors painstakingly got from technical libraries by the mid 70s it had become standard US practice to test the primary and secondary parts of the weapon. The tertitary based on the casing(tamper) was not needed as it was pure fission with high energy neutrons- 14MeV ones.
Had RC said more than 200 kt it would mean something does not add up. If you do the math usiing the Shakti-1 had enough residual neutrons to fission 200kt of the tamper.
All in all S-1 was a confirmatory test and not a design by test. The fission plug is what gives it robustness. Chirac was not confident of his boys capabilities (they have done over 200 tests and each one has differnt yield!) and thus had full yield test done in 1996 and he has advantage of using the desolate Pacific Island.
I am rereading all I have about POKII in light of RC's talk and will comment later.
The figures per kg of material are standard stuff nothing confidential. We can back calculate how much LiD had participated in the reaction. I bet it will lead to the famous PKI partial burn stuff.
-------------
Added later:
Taking 22kt as teh secondary yield and that translates to (22/50)* 1 kg = 440 grams. The question is how much was put in? PKI thinks its 10 times that which is overkill in case the design was efficient.
So I think taking the shaft capability(can handle <50 kt) and real world efficiencies and the fission plug it was closer to 1kg.
Had RC said more than 200 kt it would mean something does not add up. If you do the math usiing the Shakti-1 had enough residual neutrons to fission 200kt of the tamper.
All in all S-1 was a confirmatory test and not a design by test. The fission plug is what gives it robustness. Chirac was not confident of his boys capabilities (they have done over 200 tests and each one has differnt yield!) and thus had full yield test done in 1996 and he has advantage of using the desolate Pacific Island.
I am rereading all I have about POKII in light of RC's talk and will comment later.
The figures per kg of material are standard stuff nothing confidential. We can back calculate how much LiD had participated in the reaction. I bet it will lead to the famous PKI partial burn stuff.
-------------
Added later:
Taking 22kt as teh secondary yield and that translates to (22/50)* 1 kg = 440 grams. The question is how much was put in? PKI thinks its 10 times that which is overkill in case the design was efficient.
So I think taking the shaft capability(can handle <50 kt) and real world efficiencies and the fission plug it was closer to 1kg.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Shiv thanks for that excellent summary. I could not believe that RC reads BR!
BTW, for those looking for "Indianess" of the nuclear program need to know that tritrium (an essential ingredient of H-Bomb) is produced by the boat loads via a chemical extraction process pioneered at BARC. The US spent billions of dollars for producing tritrium through a brute force method. Also, the high explosives (triggers) group of DRDO under Santhanam provided some ground breaking indigenous devices.
On the question of yields, BARC has more credible information and data. However the information that they have is not available to others and hence all the doubts. All the raw information cannot be revealed without giving away the details of the device. IMO, the only way India is going to allay all the doubters is to conduct another series of nuclear test.
Can anyone explain/summarize low yield device physics and the need for such weapons (tactical use on battlefield has a lot of problems, IMO).
BTW, for those looking for "Indianess" of the nuclear program need to know that tritrium (an essential ingredient of H-Bomb) is produced by the boat loads via a chemical extraction process pioneered at BARC. The US spent billions of dollars for producing tritrium through a brute force method. Also, the high explosives (triggers) group of DRDO under Santhanam provided some ground breaking indigenous devices.
On the question of yields, BARC has more credible information and data. However the information that they have is not available to others and hence all the doubts. All the raw information cannot be revealed without giving away the details of the device. IMO, the only way India is going to allay all the doubters is to conduct another series of nuclear test.
Can anyone explain/summarize low yield device physics and the need for such weapons (tactical use on battlefield has a lot of problems, IMO).
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Shiv, you lucky dog !
I am kicking myself....I have travelled a few thousand miles and happen to be 30mins away from IISc and I don't see the post till a few hours after the talk...and I miss it ! %&^*
kick..kick..
Shiv check your e-mail.
I am kicking myself....I have travelled a few thousand miles and happen to be 30mins away from IISc and I don't see the post till a few hours after the talk...and I miss it ! %&^*
kick..kick..
Shiv check your e-mail.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Thanks Shiv. I hope the wallace & co read this forum too. If they are on the pay role of CIA for dis information good luck.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
ramana,BK has an axe to grind, since he regards himelf as a hawk. But it is with the overall strategy of GOI and not so much with the claimed validity of the yield, although he uses that argument. I will lay out a summary of some of his arguments in the thread on his book, Kaushal
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
very nicely summarised shiv,
what I`d like to add or stress is just one fact. Dr RC showed a number of slides of work caaried on at BARC in the areas of High pressure physics, neutron physics, material sciences and other areas, where they did pioneering work which was published in frontline peer reviwed journals. They had done various theoretical and simulations which very closely agrees with the experimental results done by other countries. This is what has helped the indian programme. The fact that we announced the yields of the tests in half an hours time after the blasts, something which the others only do afters days or weeks of calculations and verification of the data logged speaks volumes about the confidence in their understanding of the art of making the weapons. This was a point made by Dr RC himself. The amount of science done by people at BARC is tremendous. Only thorough knowledge has taken the country to where it is. I hope they keep up their good work. Anyway prastutha is lining up some more interesting talks for the future.
another thing was the way he handled the questions and the students( and a few pinkos) marvellous, no wonder he is a top guy.
what I`d like to add or stress is just one fact. Dr RC showed a number of slides of work caaried on at BARC in the areas of High pressure physics, neutron physics, material sciences and other areas, where they did pioneering work which was published in frontline peer reviwed journals. They had done various theoretical and simulations which very closely agrees with the experimental results done by other countries. This is what has helped the indian programme. The fact that we announced the yields of the tests in half an hours time after the blasts, something which the others only do afters days or weeks of calculations and verification of the data logged speaks volumes about the confidence in their understanding of the art of making the weapons. This was a point made by Dr RC himself. The amount of science done by people at BARC is tremendous. Only thorough knowledge has taken the country to where it is. I hope they keep up their good work. Anyway prastutha is lining up some more interesting talks for the future.
another thing was the way he handled the questions and the students( and a few pinkos) marvellous, no wonder he is a top guy.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Way to go doc!!! RC visited BR? 
(Boys, we ought to ease up on the 4-letter words 
).
>>a slide showing a quote from a 1974 paper by Wallace estimating the yield at 10-15 kT, and showing a quote from a Wallace paper of 1998 sayingg that Pokhran 1 was 5 kT
SC, please take a bow!!!
(Boys, we ought to ease up on the 4-letter words ).>>a slide showing a quote from a 1974 paper by Wallace estimating the yield at 10-15 kT, and showing a quote from a Wallace paper of 1998 sayingg that Pokhran 1 was 5 kT
SC, please take a bow!!!
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Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Thanks Shiv. This is your day!
This is our day too. We have been waiting for this confirmation for 4 years.
This is our day too. We have been waiting for this confirmation for 4 years.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
The Wallace quote of 10-15kT was for a US senate hearing and 5kT quote was in a paper, RC mentioned that if Wallace has lied to the senate he could have been in BBBIIIIGGGGG trouble.
He also asked wallace to make up his mind whether it was 5 or 15.
He also asked wallace to make up his mind whether it was 5 or 15.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
RC visting BR:
I very strongly feel that the Indian "island" is really for the good of India. If not for any other reason, that the "only community" in India that still has its virginity is the scientific community, at least those in the program of those years had it.
Which leads me inot the Tellis (and others) related comments. With all due respect to the Tellises of this world, I have a LOT more respect and confidence in the scientists of India. That Tellis gave herself an out by stating "is certainly difficult to believe ", is, hoepfully, to her credit. I certainly hope, for her sake, she lives long enough to gain an inkling of scientific India. Clearly, for better measurements she needs a better yardstick and a broader mind.
However, that is good enough. Also, 4 letter words should not appear on this gracefull site anyway - RC or not.He said "Oh yes, I used to look at the site about 2 years ago
I very strongly feel that the Indian "island" is really for the good of India. If not for any other reason, that the "only community" in India that still has its virginity is the scientific community, at least those in the program of those years had it.
Which leads me inot the Tellis (and others) related comments. With all due respect to the Tellises of this world, I have a LOT more respect and confidence in the scientists of India. That Tellis gave herself an out by stating "is certainly difficult to believe ", is, hoepfully, to her credit. I certainly hope, for her sake, she lives long enough to gain an inkling of scientific India. Clearly, for better measurements she needs a better yardstick and a broader mind.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
The point about Tellis and Karnad is that they are 'friendly' skeptics. They do have axes to grind but they are intellectually honest in admitting what these axes are.
The point also is that the credibility of any deterrent (esp. the Indian one with so few tests) is crucial in order for the deterrent to work. The countries to convince are in order of priority China, US and TSP. TSP is not the problem, China is. China must believe in their bones that india has a credible deterrent. Only then will it reflect in their strategies and actions towards India. Till now we cannot even agree to demarcate even the line of actual control, despite numerous attempts by india, which goes to indicate the low level of credibility that the Indian deterrent has.
Nobody denies the computational prowess of the indians. But there is many a crater between simulation and test. I have been in the simulation business for almost my entire career, and it is impossible to simulate certain features and physical phenomena except from empirical data obtained from tests.
i do not blame the scientific community . They are making do with whatever the GOI is allowing them to do. As far as GOI is concerned they have to balance international sanctions and opprobrium vs the benefits of increased testing and greater credibility of the deterrent. This is where the debate is stuck presently.
Kaushal
The point also is that the credibility of any deterrent (esp. the Indian one with so few tests) is crucial in order for the deterrent to work. The countries to convince are in order of priority China, US and TSP. TSP is not the problem, China is. China must believe in their bones that india has a credible deterrent. Only then will it reflect in their strategies and actions towards India. Till now we cannot even agree to demarcate even the line of actual control, despite numerous attempts by india, which goes to indicate the low level of credibility that the Indian deterrent has.
Nobody denies the computational prowess of the indians. But there is many a crater between simulation and test. I have been in the simulation business for almost my entire career, and it is impossible to simulate certain features and physical phenomena except from empirical data obtained from tests.
i do not blame the scientific community . They are making do with whatever the GOI is allowing them to do. As far as GOI is concerned they have to balance international sanctions and opprobrium vs the benefits of increased testing and greater credibility of the deterrent. This is where the debate is stuck presently.
Kaushal
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Niranjan, Ashley Tellis is a he. He is from Bombay to boot. He has done a lot to square the circle in the military minds about India. So go easy on him. I think he is one good example of the benefits of 'brain drain'!
vusnder should be commended for finding the contradictory statements by Wallace and bringing it to light.
vusnder should be commended for finding the contradictory statements by Wallace and bringing it to light.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
thanks ramana garu>> I was about correct Niranjan rao, but then I started visualizing how (S) he would look. I remember AT working for Bombay based magazine (weekly) and writing or was it Olga Tellis. I am fading here.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Ashley Tellis is currently at the US Embassy in Delhi as a special advisor to the Ambassador, IIRC. He probably has great access to the Indian scientific community.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Yes but he wrote the book in his RAND days. We havent seen any updates to that yet.
So does "Prasthutha" have a website or some e-presence? Does it mean the present or vartamana?
---------------
Kaushal, Some time back(1997?) there was a track II dialog with China held in Beijing prior to the tests. The excerpts are somewhere in the web.
IIRC the interesting part was that China does take India seriously and that was a surprise to the participants.
So does "Prasthutha" have a website or some e-presence? Does it mean the present or vartamana?
---------------
Kaushal, Some time back(1997?) there was a track II dialog with China held in Beijing prior to the tests. The excerpts are somewhere in the web.
IIRC the interesting part was that China does take India seriously and that was a surprise to the participants.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Yugandahr and the B'Lore based BR members, you are lucky to have a forum where such distinguished speakers come.
Did you notice the link about challenges in missile design has BR page linked to it?
Did you notice the link about challenges in missile design has BR page linked to it?
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
ok its under 'Next generation of weapons.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Bravo Shiv, - Great job.
RC visits BR!! - Now that makes me conscious of all the sp mistakes in my posts.
RC visits BR!! - Now that makes me conscious of all the sp mistakes in my posts.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
My apologies.
Just hate the feeling of being in the shoes of Rodney Dangerfield. If after 4 years RC has to still come out to bat, ....
Just hate the feeling of being in the shoes of Rodney Dangerfield. If after 4 years RC has to still come out to bat, ....
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Thanks a lot Shiv.
Maybe we should build a directory of Members statewise in India and in US who can volunteer to visit such Conferences and keep us posted with detailed information. Shivs commentary was like being there myself.
A calendar thread where dates/venues of conferences/press meetings/military events, etc can be collected and organised.
BR can evolve from a comprehensive Indian Military Information source to a First Hand Military News source too.
May the Admins kindly consider this suggestion for a calendar of events and a member directory. Thank you!
Maybe we should build a directory of Members statewise in India and in US who can volunteer to visit such Conferences and keep us posted with detailed information. Shivs commentary was like being there myself.
A calendar thread where dates/venues of conferences/press meetings/military events, etc can be collected and organised.
BR can evolve from a comprehensive Indian Military Information source to a First Hand Military News source too.
May the Admins kindly consider this suggestion for a calendar of events and a member directory. Thank you!
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
RC is erudite, clear thinking and has a good sense of humor - and to the credit of the crowd at IISc - they understood his jokes.
On the Venn diagram, after showing Indian nuke tech as an island - he said "Taaliyaan" (applause) - and got a roar of laughter. But the point he made was that peopl from the other "joined-up islanda" on teh Venn diagram could really have no knowledge of the routes taken in the indian program. Doubts are raised and accusations made to try and prise info - but he would reveal anything that was not proliferation sensitive. On Wallace's changing figures he made the wry remark that some of this information was presented to the US senate - and one would hope that information being given to such a body was accurate - and said - for example - "if I am asked to speak to parliament - I have to take care to speak with accuracy - or I will be pulled up later."
The other point (or two points) that he stressed several times in his talk was the in depth knowledge that had been developed on equations of state - or how materials behave at ANY temperature/pressure - up to millions of deg C. This knowledge is new - only a decade or two old. RC said that some of this again was sensitive info, and while he could openly talk about equations of state for Thorium, he would not talk about Plutonium.
This, combined with super computing power, enables much work to be done by simulation. This was impossible in the earlier years. The tests were useful in validating that the simulation developed predictions were accurate and relable. Another point he made waas that sub-systems could be tested thouroughly and completely anyway, and any test could be done as long as you succeed in keeping the neutron ratio ('k' - footnote above) below unity.
On the Venn diagram, after showing Indian nuke tech as an island - he said "Taaliyaan" (applause) - and got a roar of laughter. But the point he made was that peopl from the other "joined-up islanda" on teh Venn diagram could really have no knowledge of the routes taken in the indian program. Doubts are raised and accusations made to try and prise info - but he would reveal anything that was not proliferation sensitive. On Wallace's changing figures he made the wry remark that some of this information was presented to the US senate - and one would hope that information being given to such a body was accurate - and said - for example - "if I am asked to speak to parliament - I have to take care to speak with accuracy - or I will be pulled up later."
The other point (or two points) that he stressed several times in his talk was the in depth knowledge that had been developed on equations of state - or how materials behave at ANY temperature/pressure - up to millions of deg C. This knowledge is new - only a decade or two old. RC said that some of this again was sensitive info, and while he could openly talk about equations of state for Thorium, he would not talk about Plutonium.
This, combined with super computing power, enables much work to be done by simulation. This was impossible in the earlier years. The tests were useful in validating that the simulation developed predictions were accurate and relable. Another point he made waas that sub-systems could be tested thouroughly and completely anyway, and any test could be done as long as you succeed in keeping the neutron ratio ('k' - footnote above) below unity.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
I have already posted a little note with links to the pertinent documents before all this. My post is the last post in the Strategic forces discussion forum. There I had given explicit links to the Wallace documents.
So here we go again:
http://www.iris.iris.edu/HQ/Bluebook/bluebook.html
Chapter 5 contains the punchline:
http://www.iris.iris.edu/HQ/Bluebook/chapter5.magnitude.html
So here we go again:
http://www.iris.iris.edu/HQ/Bluebook/bluebook.html
Chapter 5 contains the punchline:
http://www.iris.iris.edu/HQ/Bluebook/chapter5.magnitude.html
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
Here is sunder's actual post
vsunder
Member
Member # 1357
posted 01 December 2002 03:06 PM Profile for vsunder Edit/Delete Post Reply With Quote This is sort of a Pokharan1-2 update. The following very strange and startling facts have come to my notice. For a long time I knew about them about did not think that the documents I refer to were available on the web. Well, in 1994
the US Senate commissioned and requested the IRIS consortium
http://www.iris.edu
to prepare a document on Non-proliferation issues.
This document was prepared by Gregory van der Vink and TERRY WALLACE. This is the famous Bluebook.
http://www.iris.iris.edu/HQ/Bluebook/bluebook.html
You may access it and check the requests section
in the table of contents and also the preface to see why the report was prepared. Now in Chapter 5 there lies a very interesting fact:
http://www.iris.iris.edu/HQ/Bluebook/chapter5.magnitude.html
There Wallace has told the US Senate that POK-1 was 12 kilotons. Now in 1998 after POK-2 Wallace published an article in Seismological research Letters volume 69, 1998, 386-393.
In this article he nevers refers to the above mentioned article of his and says POK-1 was 4-6 kilotons. Thus the following conclusions may be drawn:
1. Wallace suffers from selective amnesia.
2. Wallace lied to the US Senate and wasted tax payer money.
3. The refereeing standards of the the journals of the Seismological Society of America is rather low, methodology is not questioned and personal prejudices are passed on as scientific truth.
Amazingly Perkovich never refers to the Blue book while he and the DDM always refer to Wallace's
SRL article on POK-1. Since POK-1 is a benchmark for establishing yields for POK-2 here is the smoking gun. Furthermore the non-proliferation mullah/s who visit this forum are rather quiet about this Bluebook and always say "experts" say POK-2 and POk-1 fizzled. This Bluebook contradicts them and since its an official report to the US Senate I have to take it as the truth.
Now you folks decide.
Re: Dr Chidambaram's talk on Pokharan II
here is the web address of the todd mundt show in which Wallace talked BS about Indian yields.
http://toddshow.org/log/dailylistings/10052001.asp
http://toddshow.org/log/dailylistings/10052001.asp