Pokhran II not fully successful: Scientist - Part-3

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 18 Oct 2009 19:40

dinesha wrote:I did mentioned that RRCAT’s activity and facility profile is dated Feb, 2005.. even the ITER paper is recent Feb 2008

How do you assert that funding for ICF facility was curtailed? Any pointers/source please?
It is beyond imaginations that Indian nuclear bosses will allow such an act of treachery.. ICF research is critical in absence of dynamic testing...
No offence but are those your assumptions?

No offense taken (it is difficult to offend me - for what that is worth).

It is my recollection from the very early 123 deal days. I do not have any references as I post. Will try and dig them if time permits.

rakall · Post by **rakall** » 18 Oct 2009 19:45

The only complaint one can make looking at the table is -- the Indore facility has a power capability in the range of 0.15terawatts.. All the big 5 have made ICF which have 50-350terrawatts..

That seems to be a reason why the author quotes in the footnote of page43 -- for countries like India, since installation of large ICF facilities can be complex & costly - it may be cheaper to test underground.. rather than ICF testing.. ofcourse - he doesnt consider the "costs that follow" associated with underground testing..

abhiti · Post by **abhiti** » 18 Oct 2009 19:53

shiv wrote:rakall that link gives the picture (Figure 4) of a boosted fission device with just 10 kg conventional explosive and 4 kg Pu (if the figures are to be believed).

Although the paper is somewhat supercilious and treats India, Pakistan and NoKo on par, the lower half of page 24 and upper half of page 25 are significant

Note (from page 25)
3) The most important technical aspects of boosting (e.g., that during the implo-
sion of the pit by chemical explosives the fusion fuel gets sufﬁciently compressed
without mixing with the ﬁssile material) can be tested without actually starting
ﬁssion or fusion reactions. This can be done outside of the scope of the CTBT, and
only requires conventional equipments that are available in most high-explosive
research laboratories.
4) Using boosting, it is straightforward to build highly efﬁcient and reliable
ﬁssion weapons using reactor-grade plutonium. In particular, the possibility of
a preinitiation of the chain reaction, which creates difﬁculties in making a non-
boosted ﬁssion bomb [24, 25], is no longer a serious problem. In fact, two of
the ﬁve devices tested by India in May 1998 are believed to have used plutonium
that was not classiﬁed as weapons grade [26]. Moreover, independently of the
type of ﬁssile material used, the construction of “simple” and “deliverable” tritium-
boosted nuclear weapons can be easier than the construction of primitive Hiroshima
or Nagasaki type atomic bombs: the main problem is to acquire the few grams of
tritium that are needed for every weapon (see Fig.1).

And the conclusion is that even US after thousands of overall tests and eight direct tests to specific war head design doesn't take as the yield of their war head as GOSPEL.

"By another statistical measure, Dr. Forden said, 95 percent of the nation's W-76 warheads should explode with at least 60 percent of their intended force."

Remember it is NYTIMES the equivalent of Green Peace:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/science/13nuke.html

Only if they had been educated about Shiv's thought experiment...

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 18 Oct 2009 20:00

rakall,

My recollection is WRT the budget.

In my initial web surfing it seems it is rather difficult to peg that specific part down.

I would like to focus on RRCAT.

rakall · Post by **rakall** » 18 Oct 2009 20:04

NRao wrote:rakall,

My recollection is WRT the budget.

In my initial web surfing it seems it is rather difficult to peg that specific part down.

I would like to focus on RRCAT.

Plz dont take offense..

I have edited my post -- that is what it was intended to be.. a post.. not a rebuttal to your post..

Man.. this thread has seriously lowered the nuclear threshold of posters..

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 18 Oct 2009 20:06

Treasure department:

PKI :: May 2009 :: Briefings on Nuclear Technology In India

PDF Downloadable.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 18 Oct 2009 20:09

rakall wrote: Man.. this thread has seriously lowered the nuclear threshold of posters..

Well, .............. the web has its own deficiencies.

I do not get disturbed. So, "post" what ever you want.

Sanatanan · Post by **Sanatanan** » 18 Oct 2009 20:50

dinesha wrote:
.. following is the link to profile of CAT, Indore.. seems this ICF facility predates Feb, 2005..
Laser Plasma Interaction Studies
. . .
At CAT we have designed, built and commissioned a
table top one terawatt, 1 picosecond duration Nd:glass laser system
with focusable intensity exceeding 1017 W/cm2.
. . .
This is being
used to heat hollow micro-spheres of gold ( called hohlraum ) to
produce intense thermal x-ray radiation, and to study opacity
enhancement in mixed element targets, and the various processes
involved in laser driven inertial confinement fusion.

If I remember correctly, I think, post 123, RRCAT has been put in the "civilian" list, subject to International inspections.

Edited:
PS: Sorry, looks like I was wrong. In the article Nuclear separation plan seeks fine balance (The Hindu, Mar 08, 2006) Siddharth Varadarajan says:

The Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, where research work on lasers and accelerators is conducted, has also not been placed in the civilian pool.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 18 Oct 2009 21:41

FWIW From the link posted by NRao above: PKI's own word: (Page 21)

It [India's S1] also
demonstrated the hydrogen bomb in which a secondary core of lithium, deuterium
and tritium were compressed and detonated yielding at least 30 KT.

Does this supports partial burn or fizzle?

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 18 Oct 2009 22:02

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262331

What DAE Says

•Combined yield of Pokhran-II tests was 57 kt: 12 kt for the fission device; 45 kt for the TN one
•International seismologists got yield wrong because of the geological nature of Pokhran-II site
•Claims Pokhran-II yield was 4.45 times Pokhran-I, so TN device worked
•Iyengar can’t be sure about his calculations because he doesn’t know the parameters of the device.
•The radiochemical test of the Pokhran-II site proves its yield measurements were as expected
•The ratio of Mn54 to Ce144 shows fusion took place in excess of fission.

What Iyengar Says

•If so sure, why doesn’t DAE make public the video recording of the ground motion during the test?
•If international seismologists got Pokhran-I readings right, they wouldn’t get Pokhran II wrong, since site geology was more or less the same
•Pokhran-I yielded 8 kt. So, total yield at 4.45 times works to 36 kt. Since DAE assigned 12 kt for fission device, leaves only 24 kt for TN one.
•Says only 10 per cent of LiD fusion material burnt. His formula was confirmed by S.K. Sikka, then head of the BARC design team.
•Says error margins in the radiochemical residual analysis too large
•Both fission & fusion neutrons produce Mn 54, DAE ratio no confirmation

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 19 Oct 2009 06:41

PKI has made several changes in his statements

1) In his original statements he had stated 25 kt as a reasonable estimate of the primary of S1. He has now accepted the DAE figure of 12 kt

2) In his earlier statements and in this statement he says that a spark plug may have been there. He does not claim to know whether a spark plug was there or not and as per that Gsponer link a spark plug is optional.

3) PKI says depth of burial was not revealed. But Chengappa has quoted a figure of more than 200 meters and the figure 230 meters has come up recently

4) PKI quotes the "international" seismological experts who quoted figure that suit his view while not saying anything about international seismological experts whose figures match the DAE

5) PKi estimates the LiD content as 2 kg - which should have given 100 kt at 100 % efficiency. But he does not comment on DOB and proximity to villages.

Whatever the reality I believe that PKIs words should not be dismissed lightly. I am sure there is some underlying reason for him to state "something" even if his figures keep changing. Since PKI is the fusion king of India and general reading suggests to me that small fusion weapons (not humongous gigabooms) are the way of the future - with lab testing that will not break CTBT rules - I wonder if PKI has some serious concerns about the possibility that politics is interfering with India's ability to have future ready weapons - when every advanced country is moving towards small (maybe 0.1kt to 2 kt) fusion weapons. I will post links in due course.

There has to be something that neither PKI (nor Santhanam) are able to say openly (maybe in national interest) - so they have to keep rehashing the S1 arguments. They may be hinting at some deeper and more obscure issues that need resolving. Just a guess.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 19 Oct 2009 06:47

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?205732
The Slimming of Nukes

THEY'LLbe the size of a tea-cup and weigh less than a kilogram each. They won't cost much. They'll be easily compatible on delivery systems like small missiles and artillery systems. And they'll yield the equivalent of 1 to 10 tons of TNT. But that's not where Fourth Generation Nuclear (FGN) weapons make their real killing. Their biggest attraction is: they're based on atomic and nuclear processes not restricted even under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Herein lies the contradiction in global non-proliferation regimes. While current generation N-weapons are 1,000,000 times more powerful than conventional ones, FGN weapons are only 1,000 times more potent. So, while unleashing the power of the atom and revolutionising conventional warfare,they still won't be "weapons of mass destruction". And so, won't contradict any international law. Says Andre Gsponer, nuclear physicist at the Independent Scientific Research Institute, Geneva: "FGN weapons will fill the gap that exists today between conventional and nuclear weapons."

At the cutting edge of this technology today are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, the UK, Russia, China, France), Germany and Japan. But analysts say the danger of FGN weapons—given their low cost and small size, factors that allow R&D to proceed in greater secrecy—is that more and more countries could well jump onto the bandwagon.

The nuclear weapon states want FGN weapons out of the scope of CTBT so as to continue research in that area."

While the CTBT permits no nuclear explosions, it allows micro explosions with a yield of 10 tons.

Says Gsponer: "The reason for not including micro-explosions in the scope of the NPT or CTBT as suggested by India comes largely from the unwillingness of the nuclear weapon states to accept restrictions in this area of research." Adds Erkman: "For the nuclear weapon states in the West, live detonations of second and third generations bombs are no longer of any use. They gained positive publicity for the so-called abstention but also shut the door down on others."

It's how the West banned the atmospheric tests of the '50s and '60s. They claimed it was because they didn't want radiation fall-outs in other countries. The real reasons were military. The particles travelled a long distance in air and they could reveal a lot of critical information about the design and mechanisms of the detonated device. They didn't want the 'enemy' to know that.

Also, the fact that sub-critical experiments were not prohibited by the CTBT was clear when the US conducted its first sub-critical test of the post-CTBT era in July '97. The first three negative reactions to this, within days, were from China, India and Indonesia. It took the European Parliament and 15 more countries seven months to call upon the US to refrain from such tests.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 19 Oct 2009 07:30

dinesha wrote:..profile of CAT, Indore.. this ICF facility predates Feb, 2005..
Laser Plasma Interaction Studies

So India has the ICF facility. Infact that pdf also has several lasers designated to BARC as the user.

dinesha wrote: At CAT we have designed, built and commissioned a
table top one terawatt, 1 picosecond duration Nd:glass laser system
with focusable intensity exceeding 1017 W/cm2.

There is the 1 Terawatt laser.

dinesha wrote: This is being
used to heat hollow micro-spheres of gold ( called hohlraum ) to
produce intense thermal x-ray radiation, and to study opacity
enhancement in mixed element targets, and the various processes
involved in laser driven inertial confinement fusion.

This sounds like the hohlraum for the pure fusion weapons - The holy grail - 4th Gen TN weapons.
If this is true, I am amazed that they have release all this info.

dinesha · Post by **dinesha** » 19 Oct 2009 11:50

Sanatanan wrote: PS: Sorry, looks like I was wrong. In the article Nuclear separation plan seeks fine balance (The Hindu, Mar 08, 2006) Siddharth Varadarajan says:
The Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, where research work on lasers and accelerators is conducted, has also not been placed in the civilian pool.

So, RRCAT is primarily dedicated to the military program.... Hopefully (and most likely) hopfully funding is intact.. DAE has never spoken publicly about its research capabilities ... Karnad et al have been harping about lack of ICF facility since eons.. we took that as gospel truth..

dinesha · Post by **dinesha** » 19 Oct 2009 11:56

Conclusions about the boosted weapon from ITER paper, gives important pointers to the Indian capabilities and weighs in favour of RC, AK and Sikka et al.

This leads to several important conclusions:

1)With boosting, it is possible to build a relatively high yield fission explosive
which is fairly compact because it uses only a relatively small amount of high
explosives to implode the fissile material. The device can also be made relatively
lightweight because a thick neutron reflector and/or a heavy tamper surrounding
the fissile material are not necessary.

2) In an actual weapon, before arming the device, the DT mixture, or just
the tritium, is stored outside of the pit in a separate reservoir. This facilitates
maintenance and insures that boosting will not happen in case of an accidental
detonation of the high explosives. Since the amount of high explosives needed
to implode a boosted device is only on the order of a few kilograms, a boosted
fission weapon is extremely safe because an accidental nuclear explosion is almost
impossible to take place. This increased safety is the most important single factor
which enabled so many nuclear weapons to be deployed for so many year. It is also
the main reason why threshold nuclear States such as India, Israel, Pakistan, and
North Korea rely on tritium boosting technology to maintain a credible nuclear arsenal.8

3) The most important technical aspects of boosting (e.g., that during the implosion
of the pit by chemical explosives the fusion fuel gets sufficiently compressed
without mixing with the fissile material) can be tested without actually starting
fission or fusion reactions. This can be done outside of the scope of the CTBT, and
only requires conventional equipments that are available in most high explosive
research laboratories.

4) Using boosting, it is straightforward to build highly efficient and reliable
fission weapons using reactor grade plutonium. In particular, the possibility of
a pre-initiation of the chain reaction, which creates difficulties in making a nonboosted
fission bomb [24, 25], is no longer a serious problem. In fact, two of
the five devices tested by India in May 1998 are believed to have used plutonium
that was not classified as weapons grade [26]. Moreover, independently of the
type of fissile material used, the construction of “simple” and “deliverable” tritium boosted
nuclear weapons can be easier than the construction of primitive Hiroshima
or Nagasaki type atomic bombs: the main problem is to acquire the few grams of
tritium that are needed for every weapon (see Fig.1). Therefore, in summary, the
very important advance in fission weapons constituted by boosting [27, p.312], and
the fact that boosted bombs used as primaries are “lower bounding the size and
mass of hydrogen bombs” [27, p.313], confirm the
tremendous importance of tritium9 from the point of view of the non-proliferation
of fission weapons.

Conclusions about the boosted weapon arrived by the authors of ITER paper is quite opposite to those professed by some of the former and current BR in-house experts. If the paper is to be believed “Boosted weapon” is easiest to design and safest to operate. Further for a given yield “boosted fission weapon” weight reduction is in the order of 30 times when compared to pure fission weapon of WWII vintage (fig. 1). This paper further punctures hole to former/current BR experts conclusion (without substantiation) of Indian boosted weapon of yield greater then 60 KT weighing more than 800 kgs. These experts had consistently maintained without any scientific reasoning or substantiation ( but some paanwalla) about the boosting capability requiring higher technical capability then pure POK-I vintage pure fission device and hence question the reliability of Indian boosted weapons. Turns out designing pure fission device is lot challenging then boosted weapon.

Further somewhere in the paper it is also mentioned that boosting technology is prerequisite for deliverable and workable TN device. This conclusion blows away arguments of S1 having pure fission primary.

This paper does more to dispel doubts about Indian Deterrence capabilities than anything else published after KS verbalism..

All these helps to understand and arrive at the conclusions to the question I have raised in 2nd Thread that:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My point is
1. BARC did not to test standalone Boosted device/Bomb.
2. The only Boosted tested was for small yield (w.r.t 150-200 KT deterrence)primary to TN.

So what gives?

One or more of following can be concluded form above:
1. BARC scientists must be biggest fools (No disrespect intended) for not testing standalone FBF device.
2. BARC scientists were so confident of TN device that they did not think of Boosting to play major role for strategic arsenal because of wt. and other issues...
3. BARC scientists were 100% confident about the FBF design capability (by whatever means) for various yield that they thought S1 Primary was enough to validate the boosting efficiency and same or higher efficiency can be achieved for other “Boosted” device.

IMHO, we should not under-estimate BARC. I think our FBF capabilities are much more then claimed in BRF. I think what KS is stating in not 100% true. The story lies somewhere in between Boosted and TN weapon and not between Pure Fission and Boosted Weapons. As SBM Says in his post Agni –II is carrying something big...

Also different design capability requirement for smaller and bigger (but less then 200KT) boosted weapon can be pure speculation .. in absence of any authentication
>>>>>>>>>>>>

csharma · Post by **csharma** » 19 Oct 2009 12:13

Arun Prakash had also mentioned that there are no doubts about India boosted fission capability in achieving 200kt- 500kt bombs.

amit · Post by **amit** » 19 Oct 2009 12:56

csharma wrote:Arun Prakash had also mentioned that there are no doubts about India boosted fission capability in achieving 200kt- 500kt bombs.

Boss thanks for pointing that out. I've been hammering on this point so much that my head hurts!

It's laughable to suggest that the highly respected former CNS would pull out such precise figures from his hat and not know what he'd talking about.

Dinesha, Rakall and others, my personal thanks for digging all this out. To put it mildly it's very interesting indeed for a non-technical (in nuclear matters) guy like me.

So like MRIVed Agnis, the weight penalty argument also goes out of the window? Some folks must have been selling paans laced with some very nasty stuff.

amit · Post by **amit** » 19 Oct 2009 13:25

dinesha wrote:So, RRCAT is primarily dedicated to the military program.... Hopefully (and most likely) hopfully funding is intact.. DAE has never spoken publicly about its research capabilities ... Karnad et al have been harping about lack of ICF facility since eons.. we took that as gospel truth..

Wasn't the funding cuts of the 1990s mainly in uranium mining and processing?

In an earlier article on uranium shortage (The Hindu, July 11, 2008) it was argued that the current situation was a consequence of inadequate funding for mining activities during the 1990s. While this certainly did contribute to the present crisis, the CAG report reveals that the DAE itself is to be largely blamed for its failure to take corrective measures post-2000 when funding was no longer an issue.

From this Link

dinesha · Post by **dinesha** » 19 Oct 2009 13:59

Arun Prakash had also mentioned that there are no doubts about India boosted fission capability in achieving 200kt- 500kt bombs.

For the record that is not the exact assertions made by Admiral. The quotation is “In the midst of the current brouhaha, we need to retain clarity on one issue; given that deuterium tritium boosted-fission weapons can generate yields of 200-500 kt, the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrent is not in the slightest doubt.”

He merely states the potential yield that can be achieved by boosted fission device. I think he talks about the capability of the boosting technology as demonstrated by other nation(s). Whereas RC has been categorical about Indian deterrence capability being based “upon capability to design and produce upto 200 KT pure/boosted fission and TN weapons” .

I think Admiral Arun Parkash’s assertion is counter to what former BR in-house expert had professed.
As per the expert the technological challenges for boosted weapon is directly proportionate to desired yield. In other words his assertion was that during POK-II series only very small yield boosted design (as primary to S1) was tested and boosted weapon with yield greater than 50 KT requires different and higher set of scientific capabilities and hence will require dynamic testing to achieve higher confidence in performance..

Whereas one can infer from Admiral’s above quoted assertion that “having successfully demonstrated the boosted design capability during POK-II higher yield boosted weapon can be designed and produced sufficiently without any major additional technical challenges and without any need for dynamic testing...”

amit · Post by **amit** » 19 Oct 2009 14:54

dinesha wrote:Whereas one can infer from Admiral’s above quoted assertion that “having successfully demonstrated the boosted design capability during POK-II higher yield boosted weapon can be designed and produced sufficiently without any major additional technical challenges and without any need for dynamic testing...”

Doesn't the ITER paper support what the Admiral asserted?

dinesha · Post by **dinesha** » 19 Oct 2009 15:18

More than ITER paper, I would rely on actions of bosses during POK-II. Contrary to many BR member’s inference, bosses of Indian Atomic Establishment were no fools or idiots during POK-II. They are master of their domain and they knew what they were doing..

As posted earlier the logical question to those believing the assertion of in-house expert about higher technical capability requirement for high yield boosted fission weapon would be: why did not they choose to test standalone high yield boosted design during POK-II?

And the answer I believe is because “BARC scientists were 100% confident about the FBF design capability (by whatever means) for various yield that they thought S1 Primary was enough to validate the boosting design/efficiency and same or higher efficiency can be achieved for other “Boosted” device”

Further, any day Admiral Arun Parkash, CCSC, CNS assertions will always have much more credibility ...... he has access to lot more information.. furthermore his article is more about critiquing the Indian decision making system than accepting BARC/DAE stance..

rakall · Post by **rakall** » 19 Oct 2009 15:25

dinesha wrote:More than ITER paper, I would rely on actions of bosses during POK-II. Contrary to many BR member’s inference, bosses of Indian Atomic Establishment were no fools or idiots during POK-II. They are master of their domain and they knew what they were doing..

..

Wow.. golden words..

Confident?

Lock kiya jaye?

BTW - can you prove it? Sarcasm alert

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 19 Oct 2009 15:28

vera_k wrote:http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?262331

Two ways this Outlook article by PKI interests me. It confirms that there is no blue or whatever panel formed still to do the peer review. Almost all of the points rasied here are hammered already by PKI et al though DAE gave an explanation for all the doubts raised. That suggests is this excerise is just a measure to keep the pot simmering and what happened to K.Santhanam ? After the RC/AK interview there was no fresh bomb blast from him. Or these are preludes to coming drama.

Another thing suprised me is PKI chose to explain his rationale for the fusion burn. Just few days before me and Shiv were discussing that here and slightly mocked him as he always talks about 20kt for fusion.

That article in question is expressbuzz dated 02 Sep 2009

Now, if one goes by the number for the total nuclear yield put out by the Department of Atomic Energy following the 1998 nuclear tests, the thermonuclear device alone was around 50 kilotons. To know how successful the fusion was, we must know how much of this came from the boosted-fission and spark-plug, which are fission reactions, and how much from the actual fusion of tritium to form helium. In earlier designs the booster has been designed for as much as 45 kt yield, so if we take the booster yield as even 30 kt, a reasonable assumption, then the fusion yield must have been 20 kt. One can then calculate that the amount of LiD that must have burnt to achieve this yield would be 400 grams or only around 500 ml.
.....
The new revelation by Dr. Santhanam is that the actual total yield of the thermonuclear device (i.e. the boosted-fission part plus the fusion part) was only 60 per cent of the design value (of 50 kt), i.e., around 30 kt. This is also consistent with the yield values obtained from seismic data according to international sources. If we accept Dr. Santhanam’s number, coming as it does from one of the core members of the Pokhran-II tests, then the situation is even more serious. This suggests that the thermonuclear burn may have been marginal or may not even have occurred at all.

If it is 30 kt , he comes to the understanding that there is no fusion.
In this Outlook, he says...

Dr R. Chidambaram, and the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), Dr Anil Kakodkar, sought to address the ‘doubts’ raised by Dr Santhanam about the efficacy of the thermonuclear (TN) test. Were their clarifications adequate?
.....
Dr Santhanam, who was in charge of the measurements at the site, claims that the S2 (shaft-2) site in which the fission device was detonated gave a yield of 25 kt and the TN device in S1 gave much less. International seismologists, with rich experience in operating a sophisticated seismic array, all converge on a total yield not greater than 30 kt.
.....
Taking the Pokhran-I yield as close to 8 kt, as I know it as its project head, the total yield of Pokhran-II works to only 36 kt, leaving only 24 kt for the TN device (since the DAE claims 12 kt for the fission test). This is closer to the international evaluation, though slightly higher.
.....
So, part of the TN yield would have come from the boosted-fission trigger and part from the fusion burn. In 2000, I had liberally estimated this ratio to be 1:1. This was later agreed to by Dr S.K. Sikka as well, who was the scientific head of the BARC design team. With this number for the thermonuclear burn—12 kt (the other 12 kt coming from the fission trigger in that 1:1 ratio)—I have calculated that only around 250 gm of the LiD (Lithium-6 Deuteride) fusion material would have burnt. I know for sure that the BARC has the means to make highly enriched Li-6 from 1970. This amount of LiD translates to a core size of around 4 cm in radius, too small for a realistic size of an LiD core. It’s more likely that around 2 kg of LiD (8 cm radius) was used, in which case the burn efficiency would be around 10 per cent. The core’s shape could have been different from spherical.

From the 20 kt figure he moved to 1:1 ratio. He is dragging Sikka into this, further.

From his article published in 2000,

The crucial question is not what the total yield of the device was, but what was the ratio of fission energy to fusion energy? Clearly, for a given total yield, the greater the fraction of the fusion energy, the more efficient is your thermonuclear device. In my opinion, that ratio musts have been around 1:1, and no one has so far, to my knowledge either publicly or privately, disputed that number. Therefore, by my estimate, the fusion yield could not have been more than 20 kt. Further, it seems likely that a fission `spark-plug’ was used at the centre of the fusion core, in which case the actual fusion yield would have been even less.

Sticking to the larger number of a 20 kt fusion yield, one can easily calculate that the amount of LiD fusion material needed would be only around 400 grams or around 500 cc. This is a very small size for the fusion core, and the actual core used must certainly have been much larger. This suggests that the fusion core burnt only partially, perhaps less than 10 per cent. This can easily be checked; if the burn was only partial, there should have been a lot of tritium produced, which should have been detected after the explosions.

If anyone publicly or privately doesnt disagrees means makes him automatically agreeing to that ? I dont know.

So far he is sticking to 1:1 ratio and patial burn percentage as 10%. So what makes him to liberally estimate the ratio to be 1:1 and the total material as 2 kg. He talks about the size of the fusion core radius as 8 cm. In 2000 he is talking about 4kg fusion material. Are these based on his previous designs while he was at helm ?

By BARC estimation the ratio is around 1:2. In the famous US warheads W87/88 the ratio is 1:2 (100kt:200kt). Not without any reason RC proclaimed that ours is based on 1998 vintage.

Lot of tritium is supposed to get produced as the efficiency of fusion burn is around 50% only. Remaining fuel automatically changes to tritium in the process.

Shiv wrote:I wonder if PKI has some serious concerns about the possibility that politics is interfering with India's ability to have future ready weapons - when every advanced country is moving towards small (maybe 0.1kt to 2 kt) fusion weapons.

Supprising Shiv ji. Any pointers towards this ? Only thing that comes to my mind is CTBT.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 19 Oct 2009 16:37

dinesha wrote:
Arun Prakash had also mentioned that there are no doubts about India boosted fission capability in achieving 200kt- 500kt bombs.
For the record that is not the exact assertions made by Admiral. The quotation is “In the midst of the current brouhaha, we need to retain clarity on one issue; given that deuterium tritium boosted-fission weapons can generate yields of 200-500 kt, the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrent is not in the slightest doubt.”

He merely states the potential yield that can be achieved by boosted fission device.
........
Whereas one can infer from Admiral’s above quoted assertion that “having successfully demonstrated the boosted design capability during POK-II higher yield boosted weapon can be designed and produced sufficiently without any major additional technical challenges and without any need for dynamic testing...”

Indeed, all the problem is because too much is being read into the statement than the above which is simple and straightforward.

Sanku · Post by **Sanku** » 19 Oct 2009 16:41

dinesha wrote:More than ITER paper, I would rely on actions of bosses during POK-II. Contrary to many BR member’s inference, bosses of Indian Atomic Establishment were no fools or idiots during POK-II. They are master of their domain and they knew what they were doing..

Well I do not think any one (including Arun_S who is most blamed for this) said they were either fools or idiots.

Yet the situation is that they have a egg on the face and irrespective of whatever they say during press conferences, there are many open questions and the damage is done.

That is the real issue -- and I dont think KS would have precipitated this situation merely out of spite (as some have alluded) or speaking for GoI as second channel.

amit · Post by **amit** » 19 Oct 2009 16:58

Well I do not think any one (including Arun_S who is most blamed for this) said they were either fools or idiots.

This is factually a 400 per cent correct statement. The actual adjective used for one particular boss is liar. It's good to set the record straight.

The other point to remember is that no one would be "foolish enough" to call the top bosses "international class experts" and so any adjective would sit lightly on their shoulders. After all low expectations, nah?

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 19 Oct 2009 17:14

dinesha wrote:Conclusions about the boosted weapon arrived by the authors of ITER paper is quite opposite to those professed by some of the former and current BR in-house experts. If the paper is to be believed “Boosted weapon” is easiest to design and safest to operate. Further for a given yield “boosted fission weapon” weight reduction is in the order of 30 times when compared to pure fission weapon of WWII vintage (fig. 1). This paper further punctures hole to former/current BR experts conclusion (without substantiation) of Indian boosted weapon of yield greater then 60 KT weighing more than 800 kgs. These experts had consistently maintained without any scientific reasoning or substantiation ( but some paanwalla) about the boosting capability requiring higher technical capability then pure POK-I vintage pure fission device and hence question the reliability of Indian boosted weapons. Turns out designing pure fission device is lot challenging then boosted weapon.

Well, I am no expert and have no stand (sizzle or fizzle). But wish to make two observations. Scaling a FBF device may not mean a linear growth in weight. Let me elaborate.

FBF has two desirable properties

(1) Light weight -- the weight savings arises from two sources. On the one hand you need to use lesser fissile material. On the other hand, you need less explosives to bring this material together
(2) Without the boosting gas, even if the explosives go off, the bum does not go boom (there is not enough fissile material to achieve criticality).

Now let us assume that a 12KT weapon is to be scaled to 60KT. There are two issues

(1) How much more Pu is needed ? How much more explosives are needed to bring the Pu together ? note that this might not be a linear function of the desired yield (double yield = double weight)
(2) Have we put in so much Pu that it can attain criticality without boosting gas ?

I dont know the answers. But its worth thinking about.

dinesha · Post by **dinesha** » 19 Oct 2009 17:34

Anujan wrote:
Now let us assume that a 12KT weapon is to be scaled to 60KT. There are two issues

(1) How much more Pu is needed ? How much more explosives are needed to bring the Pu together ? note that this might not be a linear function of the desired yield (double yield = double weight)
(2) Have we put in so much Pu that it can attain criticality without boosting gas ?

I dont know the answers. But its worth thinking about.

Relationship between fissile material (both Pu/U) and yield is skewed towards yield. Higher efficency is achieved in higher yield weapons. Tsar Bomba was most efficient of all the test..

For example: for medium tech. Capability and pure fission device:
1.5 kg of Pu or 4 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 1 KT.
2.5 kg of Pu or 6 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 5 KT.
3.5 kg of Pu or 9 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 20 KT.
9 kg of Pu or 16.5 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 100 KT.

Here is the link to the graph relating yield and quantity of Pu and HEU...
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/fissionw/fissionweapons.pdf

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 19 Oct 2009 19:51

dinesha wrote:
Anujan wrote:
Now let us assume that a 12KT weapon is to be scaled to 60KT. There are two issues

(1) How much more Pu is needed ? How much more explosives are needed to bring the Pu together ? note that this might not be a linear function of the desired yield (double yield = double weight)
(2) Have we put in so much Pu that it can attain criticality without boosting gas ?

I dont know the answers. But its worth thinking about.
Relationship between fissile material (both Pu/U) and yield is skewed towards yield. Higher efficency is achieved in higher yield weapons. Tsar Bomba was most efficient of all the test..

For example: for medium tech. Capability and pure fission device:
1.5 kg of Pu or 4 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 1 KT.
2.5 kg of Pu or 6 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 5 KT.
3.5 kg of Pu or 9 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 20 KT.
9 kg of Pu or 16.5 Kg of HEU will produce a yield of 100 KT.

Here is the link to the graph relating yield and quantity of Pu and HEU...
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/fissionw/fissionweapons.pdf

The details given there pertains to the Fusion Bossted Fission weapon. As you go higher in increasing the yield, weight automatically starts increasing as you need more power in the form of chemical explosives to compress them.
Check the graph, once the weight starts increasing, the yield flattens out. So to compare the 500 kt fusion boosted fission weapon to 50 kt or 100 kt may not be correct.
The term Boosting is loosely used to mention two stage TN weapon. So in one or other way you may be right.

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 19 Oct 2009 20:02

abhiti wrote:
Kanson wrote:Going by K.Santhanam, there are another 500 "senior scientist" from the "establishment" in the waiting list to the join the team. Given the numbers, i guess, they could form some union.
What good is union in face of plain stupidity? Is it all that preposterous to raise doubts about an equipment which has been tested exactly ONE time? Could someone explain how one test is enough?

Boss, in the US which we constantly compare with our weapon development program, conducts only one confidence test,afaik, that too with the yield limited to 150kt. All other tests were just developmental.

negi · Post by **negi** » 19 Oct 2009 20:04

Without the boosting gas, even if the explosives go off, the bum does not go boom (there is not enough fissile material to achieve criticality).

I did not get this ; in above case even if there was enough boosting gas how will the fusion initialize in the first place if the Pu of the primary does not attain critical mass . All in all the Pu in primary has to attain critical mass following the implosion event whether it is FBF or even a full fledged 3 stage TN ( I assume we are not implying that CE alone can initiate fusion).

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 19 Oct 2009 20:17

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 51#p755351

Uncle gave a kaccha design of H bum with the condition not to test since it was ready to go design.

But people at the helm of affairs thought when asked to test it is the easy way out (and also helps us to know the bum design is good or bad).

.....

SO when the exploded the kaccha design did not work and uncle knew it would not hence the immidiate questioning of yields and our curve fitting by by data to fit facts.

This is the Ghar Ghar ki Khani, Anushakthi Durghatan.

http://www.idsa.in/publications/strateg ... %20Sub.pdf red this to get pointer that the H bum gurus were not ready when asked to do it.

Rest is all acrimony here and expulsions..

When was that ? When did Uncle gave the H bum design ? Declining to provide the fission design in 60s what made them to provide the H bum design ?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 19 Oct 2009 20:47

negi wrote:
Without the boosting gas, even if the explosives go off, the bum does not go boom (there is not enough fissile material to achieve criticality).
I did not get this ; in above case even if there was enough boosting gas how will the fusion initialize in the first place if the Pu of the primary does not attain critical mass . All in all the Pu in primary has to attain critical mass following the implosion event whether it is FBF or even a full fledged 3 stage TN ( I assume we are not implying that CE alone can initiate fusion).

Negi the explanation is there in the ITER paper - which please read when you have time.

Basically it says that in FBF that the fusion fuel starts producing neutrons when only 1% of the fission fuel has fissioned - leading to runaway fission and an increased yield although the fusion booster itself contributes to maybe 2% of yield.

I think Gsponer is trying to say this in thei depiction of time versus reaction in FBF

<start of fission fission-<fusion starts and ends>------------------------------------------------end of fission>

IOW in the absence of fusion boosting fuel the Pu will not fission enough to sustain a chain reaction.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 19 Oct 2009 20:51

Kanson wrote: Lot of tritium is supposed to get produced as the efficiency of fusion burn is around 50% only.

I recall reading that 50% efficiency was only seen in Tsar Bomba 3 stage device. Need to confirm

Kanson wrote:
Shiv wrote:I wonder if PKI has some serious concerns about the possibility that politics is interfering with India's ability to have future ready weapons - when every advanced country is moving towards small (maybe 0.1kt to 2 kt) fusion weapons.
Supprising Shiv ji. Any pointers towards this ? Only thing that comes to my mind is CTBT.

Well I am trying to be fair. Maybe he is not a liar and has some concerns. Should not simp-simply call people liars no.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 19 Oct 2009 20:54

Kanson wrote:
Uncle gave a kaccha design of H bum with the condition not to test since it was ready to go design.
When was that ? When did Uncle gave the H bum design ? Declining to provide the fission design in 60s what made them to provide the H bum design ?

Let me state this plainly. This is yet another forum bluff that cannot be substantiated. This is par for the course for a long series of isharas like "S1 was meant to be 200 kt" and "S1 had fissionable tamper"

At least PKI admits that he is not sure if S1 had a spark plug or not. Not so for others on here who had details of design. But the liar was RC

Umrao Das · Post by **Umrao Das** » 19 Oct 2009 21:13

Be it piskology or fusion Shivji is the final word and if he denies it then its a lie!

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 19 Oct 2009 21:17

Well I do not think any one (including Arun_S who is most blamed for this) said they were either fools or idiots.

Sorry sankuji but l RC, AK and President Kalam, Primeminister MMS have been called ..
- Liars (multiple times)
- Snake oil sellers (Wonder if those 'sacrificial xray sensors' will find out 400% which snake oil was there)
- [Men who] Walk on Water (That's why AK is some times known as MWWOW)
- Traitors
-Vapor ware sellers...

Just do a simple search and you will find multiple occurrences, such as

Now that CAG has put this in black and white can we have Anil Kakodkar and MMS put on trial for Cr.Procedure 420 and pushing treasonous nuclear deal with USA

(Did not say whose permission was being sought and was that permission granted?

)

or:

Snake oil seller lead by M/S MMS and Kakodkar were selling to gullible Indian janata Indian reserve of 62,000 tonnes, with slay of hand keeping 40,000 ......

Both quotes are from Arun_S.

*** Edited by author ***
No offence to anyone. I know you (and many others here) are supporters of Arun_S, and I am sure he is a patriotic nice person but just wanted to set the record straight.

*** Some parts are edited by author

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 19 Oct 2009 21:25

shiv wrote:
Kanson wrote: Supprising Shiv ji. Any pointers towards this ? Only thing that comes to my mind is CTBT.
Well I am trying to be fair. Maybe he is not a liar and has some concerns. Should not simp-simply call people liars no.

Maybe I ask him to clarify his flip-flop on the yield of POK-I before anyother thing. First 8, then 10 again he changed that to 8 kt.

negi · Post by **negi** » 19 Oct 2009 21:31

shiv wrote: Basically it says that in FBF that the fusion fuel starts producing neutrons when only 1% of the fission fuel has fissioned - leading to runaway fission and an increased yield although the fusion booster itself contributes to maybe 2% of yield.

I think Gsponer is trying to say this in thei depiction of time versus reaction in FBF

<start of fission fission-<fusion starts and ends>------------------------------------------------end of fission>

Shiv ji couple of things.

I am pointing out the fact that Pu in primary should attain critical mass independent of the nuke design(fission,FBF or 3 stage TN).

What you are talking about is the efficiency of the design which is enhanced by using the boosting gas.

No one is denying the fact that efficiency will go down by X% in case boosting gas for some reason does not undergo fusion or is absent altogether ; however in either case The Pu in the primary has to attain critical mass and FISSION reaction will take place (the neutron reflectors ensure that the mass remains at least critical throughout and ofcourse assuming that lens worked like a charm).

IOW in the absence of fusion boosting fuel the Pu will not fission enough to sustain a chain reaction.

This is a very simplistic statement. There will be a chain reaction else how will boosting initialise in the first place ? However how much % of the Pu will undergo fission will vary (i.e. come down in case boosting does not take place) but it will be critical none the less.All in all efficiency will come down.

Kanson · Post by **Kanson** » 19 Oct 2009 21:37

negi saab, first you need to define what is critical mass. Rest will follow automatically.