"I am told Chidambaram's disciples have developed cold feet and this will not happen now, not ever.ramana wrote:We will find out when Sikka delivers his talk.
Shiv ji, clever to switch context. So let me set you back by posting the full context of that reply to Dileep.shiv wrote:Yes but Seismologists may be tempted to admit that there are error margins is all seismological estimates. If they say 50 to 150 kt we will have to test 1 megaton so that they can say 200 kt to 1 megaton.Arun_S wrote: It cant be masked as 30 kT period !!
As I said before credibility required is for Indian stake holders (Military, SFC, Start policy makers); who cares about NPA?Arun_S wrote:Dileep wrote:I agree on the part that the yield verification by seismic data should be done by an unrelated organization.
If we do a 150kt phataka, the following would happen:
1. NPA will claim it is only 30KT, hence fizzle.
2. Hawks will claim it is FBF, too heavy to put on the tip of the missile etc, hence no deterrent
3. SuperHawks willdemanding 1MT bum onlee.
And the political leadership will still be patting their own musharraff, seeing if the backbone is being grown yet.
Point 1 is not correct.
Given what we have heard from "Don't test, India doesn't need H bomb, lobby" on BARC competence in characterizing the Pokhran range with the stimulus response characterization prior to 1998 to determine exactly how much TN fizzle is need to protect the Khetolai village from any damages more than just simple cracks; BARC will next time do the 150 kT at the optimal burial depth (given they are super competent in this SHOCK 3D etc etc, and the POK-II experience under its belt), the crater from 150kT will be of a size that no 30kT test out of thousands done by N5, match. It will only match those test that produced 150kT or more. There is no two way about in competently showing a test that yields 150 kT. It cant be masked as 30 kT period !! (unless of course SHOCK 3D decides to give its progenitor a shock and they over-bury the 150 kT into a 900 m deep shaft, or they continue to walk beaten tradition of Pok-II TN fizzle)
Perhaps you did not read my entire post.Do you think so? If that was the case, the megaton lobby would have still said:
VinodTK wrote:
India focus on disarmament as CTBT debate revs up
Qssalience of hydronuclear technology for India, given the reports that China and Russia were conducting hydronuclear tests to corroborate computer findings and/or simulations; making public a secret understanding of 1999 of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which a US diplomat alluded to during a congressional hearing;
Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, 2009shiv wrote: 1) What hydronuclear tests?
The Case Made by Opponents of CTBT Ratification
Third, the treaty remarkably does not define a nuclear test. In practice
this allows different interpretations of its prohibitions and asymmetrical
restrictions. The strict U.S. interpretation precludes tests that produce
nuclear yield. However, other countries with different interpretations
could conduct tests with hundreds of tons of nuclear yield—allowing
them to develop or advance nuclear capabilities with low-yield, enhanced
radiation, and electro-magnetic-pulse. Apparently Russia and possibly
China are conducting low yield tests. This is quite serious because Rus-
sian and Chinese doctrine highlights tactical nuclear war fighting. With
no agreed definition, U.S. relative understanding of these capabilities
would fall further behind over time and undermine our capability to
deter tactical threats against allies.
Fourth, the CTBT’s problems cannot be fixed by an agreement that
all parties follow a zero-yield prohibition because it would be wholly
unverifiable. Countries could still undertake significant undetected test-
ing. The National Academy of Sciences concluded that underground
nuclear explosions with yields up to 1 or 2 kilotons may be hidden.
Consequently, even a “zero-yield” CTBT could not prevent countries
from testing to develop new nuclear war fighting capabilities or improve
existing capabilities.
Apparently that zero yield hydronuclear tests would not be considered nuclear tests.2) What secret understanding among P5
The map linked below show the hydroacoustic monitoring stations linked to teh CTBTGerard wrote:Apparently that zero yield hydronuclear tests would not be considered nuclear tests.2) What secret understanding among P5
Shiv ji, these hydroacoustic stations would detect fully-critical nuclear explosions in the sea or ocean - like the French did at Mururoashiv wrote: ...
The map linked below show the hydroacoustic monitoring stations linked to teh CTBT
http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/bsv/ctbto/ims/hydro.html
This means that these stations are programmed to ignore hydoracoustic signals coming from tests from some directions of the globe while they will come down like a ton of bricks on nations that produce signals in other parts of the globe.
...
to mean that India either asked or asked and got the actual nuclear test data to conduct hydronuclear testing.salience of hydronuclear technology for India
Ah OK - it was my misunderstanding of what was being done.PratikDas wrote: Shiv ji, these hydroacoustic stations would detect fully-critical nuclear explosions in the sea or ocean - like the French did at Mururoa
This is different from hydronuclear tests which are conducted in a lab so that one can be absolutely sure that the chain reaction is quickly terminated before it blows the lab out of the map.
Interesting to note this passage:In a hydronuclear test, fissile material is imploded, but a supercritical mass is not maintained for a long enough time to permit the device to deliver "full" nuclear yield. Depending upon the conditions of the test, nuclear energy releases may range from the unmeasurably small (milligrams or less) to kilograms or even metric tons of TNT equivalent yield.
Hydronuclear experiments, as distinguished from hydrodynamic ones, use actual fissile material assembled to form a supercritical mass in which a chain reaction be-gins. Normally, hydronuclear experiments are designed to use nuclear devices modified in one of several ways, including substituting inert material or less-fissile material for some of the HEU or plutonium in the pit, so that very little nuclear energy release occurs. Yields in experiments described as “hydronuclear” by various countries have ranged from much less than 1 kg TNT equivalent to many tons.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is a zero-yield ban because we determined that this was in our interest and because no threshold above zero yield would have been negotiable, for reasons that remain true. The original U.S. and British scope position, which would have allowed "hydronuclear" tests with yields up to four pounds, might have been reluctantly accepted by the non-nuclear weapon states. But it was vigorously rejected by Russia, France, and China, which preferred yield limits of 10 tons, 300 tons, or an exemption for "peaceful" nuclear explosions, respectively. Such yield thresholds would have been politically unacceptable to many non-nuclear weapon states, and the PNE exemption was rejected by almost everyone.
Subcritical tests have become largely accepted internationally for ensuring the safety and reliability of a nation's nuclear force without resorting to nuclear testing. Russia has been conducting subcritical tests involving both weapons-grade plutonium and uranium since 1995 at its Novaya Zemlya test site near the Arctic Circle.
I recall reading in the last 2 weeks that 95% of US underground tests were deep enough to produce little or no surface disturbance.PratikDas wrote:Apologies if this has been posted before:
Satellite image of Nevada Test Range with test craters named
The biggest crater I could see is cheekily named "Easy".
The US subcritical or hydronuclear testing facility was named Low-Yield Nuclear Experiment Research (LYNER) but was later renamed the U1a facility.
The U1a / LYNER facility is a stone's throw from the crater farm as shown in this satellite image. Even this subcritical testing facility performs tests at 960 feet (~293 m) below the surface.
Whether to make a fission-fusion weapon into a fission-fusion-fission weapon is one of the most basic design issues. A fission-fusion weapon uses an inert (or non-fissionable) tamper and will obtain most of its yield from the fusion reaction directly. A fission-fusion-fission weapon will obtain at least half of its yield (and often far more) from the fusion neutron induced fission of a fissionable tamper.
The basic advantage of a fission-fusion-fission weapon is that energy is extracted from a tamper which is otherwise deadweight as far as energy production in concerned. The tamper has to be there, so a lighter weapon for a given yield (or a more powerful weapon for the same weight) can be obtained without varying any other design factors. Since it is possible to do this at virtually no added cost or other penalty, compared to an inert material like lead, by using natural or depleted uranium or thorium there is basically no reason not to do it if the designer is simply interested in making big explosions.
And 'allo 'allo 'allo? Look at thisThe end of surface testing of nuclear weapons after the atmospheric test ban treaty effectively removed "cleanliness" as a significant concern for designers. Complaints about fall-out vanished, and so did the ability of the international community to monitor weapon design through fall-out analysis. The cost-effectiveness of lighter weapons put great pressure on designers to extract weight saving however they could, and it is likely that the idea of using non-fissile tampers disappeared very quickly. There is scant evidence that so-called "clean" designs were ever deployed in any quantity.
The fission yield of the tamper can be increased even further by adding slow-neutron fissionable material to it. Basically this means using enriched uranium instead of natural or depleted uranium.
Highly enriched uranium is definitely known to be used in U.S. weapons. About half of the U.S. inventory of weapons-associated HEU is less than "weapons grade" (<93.4% that is). The probable use of most or all of this uranium (generally with an enrichment of 20-80%) was in thermonuclear weapon tampers.
Now, once one considers using substantial amounts of HEU in the secondary, the question of why the fusion fuel is needed at all arises. The answer: it probably is not essential. The idea of imploding fissile material is what set Stanislaw Ulam on the path to that led eventually to thermonuclear weapons. But with the availability of large amounts of HEU, and the trend toward smaller weapon yields (compared to the multimegaton behemoths of the fifties), the Ulam's idea of using radiation implosion to create a light weight high-efficiency pure fission weapon returns as a viable possibility. It is an interesting question whether all modern strategic nuclear weapons *are* in fact thermonuclear devices!
Not confined to mutual exchanges, either. Any weapon above Hiroshima level effectively threatens major population centers with annihilation. Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not have a lot of high-rise bldgs in 1945, AFAIK (sure didn't after the explosions..) but most big cities in China and India do. So any air-burst of a nuclear weapon of the Hiroshima class would cause a truly "mega" death toll.This is quite serious because Russian and Chinese doctrine highlights tactical nuclear war fighting.
As per the above article even if 1% of the secondary fuel undergoes fusion the thermonuclear device worked. But one needs higher efficiency so as to achieve the desired yield. I think it can be clearly deduced from the above article that Increasing the quantity of LiD will not have significant impact on yield. The efficiency of the secondary fusion is governed by the compression of the fusion fuel as well as the time gap between the arrival of radiation (x-ray and Gamma ray) from the primary and the arrival of “expending fireball from the fission of the primary” to the secondry.Austin wrote: But he thinks it burnt only ~ 10 % , so my question is what is the % of burn needed to call a TN bum a success , certainly one can increase the quantity of LiD and can burn at 10 % and give a desired yeald , but that will not mean TN is successful.
dinesha wrote: As per the above article even if 1% of the secondary fuel undergoes fusion the thermonuclear device worked. But one needs higher efficiency so as to achieve the desired yield.
System is called:
P.S. Pls don't tell anyone. This is Top Secret Classified Info, like Praful Bidwai quotes.Bhas-Ma-Shoora-2
You may be right Bheem. I have no idea.Bheem wrote:Re Shiv
Actually the nuclear physics package or the TN device itself is very small, something like 50kg for modern 100kt device. As a thumb rule (based on a link above) 50% of the payload should be nuclear payload while 50% of the nuclear device should be the "physics package". In case of prithvi - 2, as it does not have any MIRV or (perhaps) even decoys or jammers etc, therefore let as assume that 250kg out of 500kg is the weapon. The range of prithvi-2 is widely accepted to be 300km+.
My guess is that Indian TN is 250kg, FBF of 20kt 150kg and Simple Fission nuke of 10kt around 100kg or lower. My guess is that Agni -5 can / will carry something like 6 simple fission nukes of 10kt. While we may not have perfected the TN but our Fission device (not bomb) of 10kt would be less than 100kg. The air dropped bomb should also be around 400-500kg or perhaps much much lower.
This is t he reason people of the forum jumped all over bala garu when he suggested " add a few dollops of LiD .. etc etc)Increasing the quantity of LiD will not have significant impact on yield.
A screen grab from 2 pages re testing of nukesdinesha wrote:Progressive article by Howard Morland of November 1979 is till date the main source for the public knowledge about the design and working of the Thermonuclear bomb. It is also the simplest to understand and comprehend. I read it again today. It gives lots of insights to our own nuclear weapon program.
Relevant material starts from page9 to page 14 (Don't miss the corrections in page 37), but the entire article titled “The H-Bomb Secret” is must read.
The highlighted part is incorrect.shiv wrote:I would guess that Indian weapons are heavier and may (I am guessing) give yields of 60-80 kiloton at weights of 500 kg. Probably mostly fission and boosted fission (which is fission-fusion-fission).
For answer pls see BR's Agni missile page for 50 kt warhead.Plutonium goes critical easily if you collect up 10 kg of it in a ball and makes an unsafe warhead. Safer is to have less - maybe 8 kg or 6 kg in a hollow sphere and use material for boosting. You get 20 kt per kg of Pu. At 20 to 30% efficiency you get 40 kt. How much would a warhead that does this weigh?
Why not something more realistic like 1 kg or even 4 kg (given that you believe in PKI's statement of 400gm burn that was perhaps upto 10% of the fusion fuel) ? Unless you are bent on making a Tsara type bum, and you are in the camp of people on BR that want 1MT , 10MT test.If you add a secondary stage - say 20 Kg LiD you would need a big tamper around that.
One could just as easily narrate a TN configuration that can be much lighter20 Kg LiD at 10 % burn (fizzle) should yield 100 kilotons but it would need a huge tamper - maybe 100 or 200 kg (I have no idea - no references). If that tamper fissions at 10% efficiency the bomb would be about 300 kilotons - more if more tamper fissions - but this would probably weigh at least 2000 Kg - too heavy for anything other than PSLV. Indian warheads need to be within 1000 kg given the level of development of our missiles. There is an outside possibility that there are untested and relatively ineffcient TN warheads with 6-8 Kg Pu and 4-5 Kg LiD with fissionable tamper to give 100 to 150 kt. All within 1000 kg Nothing proven of course. The only data we have is that fission bombs worked and fusion may have been 10%.
Yes but mine is Rev 14 published in Dec 1994. So this is the later version.Gerard wrote:This?
http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/publicati ... _REV15.pdf
Unlikely that they were full TN weapons. They may have been TN related. The smallest TN test was for 2.3 kt.Bheem wrote:We do need more tests immediately unless off course few of low kt tests were actually TN tests (like your post above) then perhaps we stand on a better footing.
Blasphamy !!! One cant speak against a 90 mile range mijjile that Ex-president APJ Kalam created.shiv wrote:If you recall the old days when Prithvi I was said to be able to carry a 1 ton payload 150 Km. Later we heard about Prithvi II with 500 Kg payload and 250 Km. Doesn't it seem absurd to have these stupidly small ranges? Even a MiG 21 can carry a bigger load of conventional weapons for a longer distance.
Of all the missiles made by IGMDP only one saw day of light in usable quantities, called Prithvi, and that too a lame duck with very short leg (BTW lower payload on Prithvi cant result in longer range, because the aluminum body missile is incapable of re-entry for those high velocity regime and will melt on re-entry) . Trishul is canned and dead. Akash is no where to be seen in Akash yet, and by the time it is deployed, the types of targets and war-fighting it has been designed would have aged and been long dead. Astra has only a tested rocket motor as yet, and barely a dozen or two of Agni-II are manufactured . All while Ex-president Kalam floated the IGMDP in DRDO, later spent time in the south block and even more later in Rastrapati Bhavan. His project management legacy has left a legacy of un-met commitments.Imagine if we had nuclear warheads that weigh 250 Kg. How far would Prithvi go then?
Reminds me of Mav bhai.shiv wrote:Incidentally have you any source outside of BR that attributes MIRV on Agni and does not use BR as source? Just curious. Ajai Shukla talks of MIRV in future.Bheem wrote:Re Shiv
Actually the nuclear physics package or the TN device itself is very small, something like 50kg for modern 100kt device. As a thumb rule (based on a link above) 50% of the payload should be nuclear payload while 50% of the nuclear device should be the "physics package". In case of prithvi - 2, as it does not have any MIRV or (perhaps) even decoys or jammers etc, therefore let as assume that 250kg out of 500kg is the weapon. The range of prithvi-2 is widely accepted to be 300km+.
Multiple Independently Targetted Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV)
Reusable missions and MIRVs are future systems that would gain from carbon nanotubes, nanocarbon reinforced ceramics, smart structures and advanced materials. India has developed propulsion and re-entry systems of aerospace vehicles that need to operate in high temperature regimes such as 3000–5000°C and meet the aero thermal environment of re-entry. Scientists have successfully flight-tested the unique all-carbon composite re-entry heat shield with multi-directional carbon–carbon re-entry nose tip and control surfaces in the AGNI missile systems.