LETHALFORCE
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India's Neutron bomb capability
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What was tested was based on Teller Ulam design. Wasn't a boosted device
no smoking
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Then your bomb didn't work out as designed.
no smoking
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No, I am not worry about that. Nuclear deal will increase your capability to produce bomb but won't help a lot on designing a bomb. Supercomputer won't help that before your scientists get the design right.
Yes, neither Beijing, nor Washington worries about it because supercomputer doesn't work as you think.
In order to have supercomputer help your future war head design, you need to collect enough data through series nuclear explosions. Then based on your knowledge of various nuclear bombs (which are verified by your tests) and the data, you create a mathematics model of nuclear explosion. After that, you will need further multiple tests and compare them with simulated results of your mathematics model to find out faults and fix them.
So, even your scientists already collected enough data (which I highly doubt it), you still need at least 2 more successful tests to make your supercomputer ready.
no smoking
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No, I don't think China will provide Pak further help on nuclear weapon because they don't need it. Even though Pakistan didn't implement NFU policy, their nuclear war doctrine is still nuclear deterrence essentially. They are not necessarily pursuing a nuclear equivalence with India. They were going to nuclear to avoid a complete surrender to a possible Indian nuclear blackmail while India went nuclear to be a big power.
So, as long as Pakistan is confident that her nuclear force can impose significant damage to India, they will be fine.
For the countries fully experiencing nuclear explosion tests, there is no much ambiguity surrounding India's Hbomb. Whatever India is going through now, those five countries have passed through.
LETHALFORCE
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Interesting Pakistani view of India's nuclear program. (Do not agree with numbers and other claims)
Reactors, Reprocessing & Centrifuges: India's Enduring Embrace of Fissile Material
Reactors, Reprocessing & Centrifuges: India's Enduring Embrace of Fissile Material
LETHALFORCE
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LETHALFORCE
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warrior monk
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Let me tell you why nuclear weapons are tested
Production verification of a developed design
Proof of concept of some weapon idea
Demonstration of performance under marginal conditions
Demonstration of "one-point" safety
Obtaining physics data related to weapon design
Non-weapon basic physics.
As you can see the above requirements can be simulated in a controlled environment except to measure the properties of materials in the relevant ranges of pressure and temperature through normal explosives , although they can be tested somewhat by laser based X-Ray source.
All the various parts of the warhead can be individually tested and monitored fabricated material and its detonation velocity and other characteristics compared with the standard equipment. Similarly, fabricated metal parts ( pressure vessels) can be tested separately. Even the performance of a nuclear weapon in flight can be simulated by dropping a bomb or launching a missile with an inert warhead which India regularly does. High-fidelity telemetry can be used to to verify that unexpected problems have not expected.
Most important reason for testing determining the performance of the nuclear pit which is driven by high explosives to which record the time of arrival of the shock waves in here Lasers can be used in controlled situation to test the pit itself.
If plutonium is used which India uses than subcritical testing instead of super critical test can done by preventing 2 out of 3 neutrons released .
In hydrodynamic testing, non-fissile isotopes, such as plutonium-242, are subjected to enough pressure and shock that they start to behave like liquids x-ray photographs can be used to obtain information on the resulting implosion , computer calculations based on these test results are used to predict how a nuclear weapon would perform during implosion.
All the above mentioned processes and more can be done by India
Nuclear physicists opine that scaled experiments could yield ten times more data points than regular test .
FYI Since the tritium used in boosted and staged weapons have a half life of 12.5 years and China has not tested in 25 years so what do you think is the condition of your warheads . You have to completely dismantle the warheads to fill up the tritium then reassemble it but what is the fidelity of the reassembled warheads without testing so when is Chinese govt going to test.
Production verification of a developed design
Proof of concept of some weapon idea
Demonstration of performance under marginal conditions
Demonstration of "one-point" safety
Obtaining physics data related to weapon design
Non-weapon basic physics.
As you can see the above requirements can be simulated in a controlled environment except to measure the properties of materials in the relevant ranges of pressure and temperature through normal explosives , although they can be tested somewhat by laser based X-Ray source.
All the various parts of the warhead can be individually tested and monitored fabricated material and its detonation velocity and other characteristics compared with the standard equipment. Similarly, fabricated metal parts ( pressure vessels) can be tested separately. Even the performance of a nuclear weapon in flight can be simulated by dropping a bomb or launching a missile with an inert warhead which India regularly does. High-fidelity telemetry can be used to to verify that unexpected problems have not expected.
Most important reason for testing determining the performance of the nuclear pit which is driven by high explosives to which record the time of arrival of the shock waves in here Lasers can be used in controlled situation to test the pit itself.
If plutonium is used which India uses than subcritical testing instead of super critical test can done by preventing 2 out of 3 neutrons released .
In hydrodynamic testing, non-fissile isotopes, such as plutonium-242, are subjected to enough pressure and shock that they start to behave like liquids x-ray photographs can be used to obtain information on the resulting implosion , computer calculations based on these test results are used to predict how a nuclear weapon would perform during implosion.
All the above mentioned processes and more can be done by India
Nuclear physicists opine that scaled experiments could yield ten times more data points than regular test .
FYI Since the tritium used in boosted and staged weapons have a half life of 12.5 years and China has not tested in 25 years so what do you think is the condition of your warheads . You have to completely dismantle the warheads to fill up the tritium then reassemble it but what is the fidelity of the reassembled warheads without testing so when is Chinese govt going to test.
no smoking
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I am not a nuclear weapon expert, so I can only discuss with my limited knowledge, if I am wrong, please point out.
There are 2 problems I would like to point out in your discussion:
1. Unlike atomic bomb, most of technical details of to hydrogen bomb design are still remained classified. People may know the rough idea of a hydrogen bomb, but there are still lots of theoretical problems to overcome before a whole bomb blueprint is draw. Since there is no public source to verify your theory, you really don't know if your theory is right or not until you check it through a full scale test (there is always some limitation in other form of test). Each of P5 doesn't lack failed explosion based on faulty design even each part of the bomb was tested strictly before explosion.
2. You mentioned "Controlled environment", my question is how do you know the parameters of this "controlled environment" match the actual environment during the explosion. Once again, without an actual test, you are still testing on the basis of theory which is not verified.
Please read the following link, they explain better regarding nuclear simulation.
Nuclear Weapon Testing
Quote:" Only with a large collection of data derived from yield tests of different types of devices can a weapons designer be confident that he understands the behavior of different possible designs within what is termed the nuclear weapons "design space," and only then can he be confident that the computer programs used to predict device performance deliver reliable results. This may be the strongest motivation for a proliferator to test at full yield. However, even a series of full-yield tests may not provide all of the information needed for weapons design."
An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie
No, Chinese doesn't need a test just for a warheads reassembled. Chinese tested their first H-Bomb in 1967, so it was not first time they are doing this reassemble. Unlike India, they already collected enough data from the tests of aged nuclear warheads before. With these data, they already developed their own computer simulation model. And the performance of this model was proved by comparing to other tests later. Besides, all of their warhead design was proved in various tests. I don't see they got anything to worry about.
Khagesh
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You really are smoking something. Ganda bacha, Bad Boy (or girl or whatever).
Just read what I have highlighted and tell us how this is not a Confirmation Bias?
Reality is you just read what you want to believe in. Stupid people usually do that. Are you one?
Large amount of data ain't going to help you any. What you really want is data along the edges of the 'design space'. This in turn requires many different types of tests, along different technology paths, with different masalas (condiments/fissle materials), all along the design maturity curve.
What you have to really understand is that it does not matter what you (Chinese individual) think. What really matters is what the Chinese Mandarins think. And for that you can search for the reaction put on full display by the Chinese spokesman when he was told about the Day-2 tests in the Shakti series of tests. FYI the following is common knowledge with all nationalists in India:
Bharat: An Untold Story • #OperationShakti Initial Reactions After the...
Epic man!!
Ok more seriously though, here follows:
You have to be abreast of what the Chinese themselves are doing instead of merely blabbering what the Americans NPT fanatics say. The Chinese were doing their last tests just 3 years before our own last (!?) tests and while they have more data than us their climb up the scientific ladder is exactly like ours, for the simple reason that the variety in their data and their scientific brain power is not very different from ours.
What you are stating was state of the art in 50s and 60s. State of the art in 90s was significantly different. For example what you call simulation using real explosion data is the higher state simulation, which allows you to design new weapons. But if the real test so important than you have to also concede that the weapons designed based on 3D data simulation itself will be subject of suspicion.
Even during the 50s with the very first few tests itself people had realized that there is not much they can do to improve the system of a teller ulam and that is exactly why they did began doing 4 things simultaneously to restrict others:
1) start a club in late 50s and early 60s, called NPT basically to keep out 3 countries from the tellar ulam club - Germany (Frenchie, English and Americans were afraid of them), Japan (Americans and Chinese were afraid of them) and the Indians (nobody wanted India into their exclusive white club). Germany and Japan gave in easily - they were tired of wars. India never cared enough for your whites only club.
2) start a research in controlled fusion - this is so complex that the scientists of the whole world have converged and today the national efforts of each countries merely support their contributions to the international effort or try to duplicate what is being done internationally (to guard against sanctions - having learnt from the NPT club experience)
3) try to co-opt whoever was getting to within striking distance of the Teller Ulam. Which is why you see the Americans finding common ground with the Indians post the Shakti tests.
4) stigmatize anybody who was beginning the effort to do research which would ultimately lead to a tellar ulam. Iran/NoKo/Pakis all fall in this bracket. India also used to till Shakti tests.
However this is based on the presumption that the tellar ulam is the ultimate weapon. Such a presumption can only be made by the kind of people who do not design weapons aka politicians.
Off course that presumption was wrong and the real weapon designers and real operators knew that, what the politicians are doing will only give them some respite from competition. It could not have given an insurance. There is no insurance for such things.
A tellar ulam requires two things that made the whole scheme a very theoretical weapon. Lithium and implosion lense.
The implosion lens was a resolvable problem - change the method of implosion which after all was about shaping a charge. Get a fast camera, a shock wave traveling tube and good brain power and ho gaya ji.
The real problem was the lithium, as much a problem as a solution. Lithium is a not a dense metal. So much so that while a 1 pound of URANIUM (almost same as PLUTONIUM) will make a ball only 1.3 inches in diameter while a 1 pound of LITHIUM will make a ball 8.24 inches in diameter. And that big volume went right inside the explosive part of the whole assembly, not on the outside. So that forces the whole weapon to balloons in size to produce a nearly unusable article. It will be clean but it will be Beeeeg. This limit is imposed by mother nature herself.
The best most efficient most clean tellar ulam design will give a big clean explosion but will also demand a compression of some 8 times the comparative volume, of some very light lithium also to get about 3 to 6 times (old vs new gen TN) the yield per unit fissle material. 1 kg of U gives ~8 kt at a realistic 50% tritium boosted burn and 1 kg lithium will give 50kt at realistic later generation 100% burn or 25 kt at a realistic earlier gen TN 50% burn. You do the Math for volume and mass.
The weapons designers understood that a pure tellar ulam fusion would be weight efficient but volume in-efficient. A fission OTOH would be exactly the reverse - weight in-efficient but volume efficient, per unit of fissle mass. To resolve this weakness of tellar ulam simpliciter, the weapons designers knew they will again have to produce staged hybrids of fission-fusion-fission and the earlier salivation for staged fission-fusion-fusion was a pipe dream unless you want to make a dooms-day machine.
So these real weapons designers and operators took up did 3 things:
1) take up study into point # 2 of the politicians and try to figure by way of the so called 'international cooperation' as to who was doing what and progressing how much. Even our own RRCAT was openned up on the basis of this so called 'international scientific cooperation'. This was needed because the lab level plasma physics had already reached the point where the innards of the radiative ablation were understood exceedingly well and to top it all the lab level indirect implosion pellets were beginning to do to real explosions what the plasma physics had done to the radiative ablation earlier. IOW people of well endowed countries were beginning to reach a point where the real weakness of the tellar ulam that the weapons designers had figured and the operators had been convinced about for ages were also threatening to be resolved and that too in a non-explosive method - simple old brain power.
2) take up new weapons designing based on simulation. But that has problems of its own. No mastrubation whosoever realistic can replace a woman.
3) take up secret research on non-explosive tests (basically statistical knowledge about how good the existing weapons are). This is open to everybody including Iran/Pakis/Noko.
So what you say about Indian tests may or may not be true. But then again it may all be designed to be so
. Jaaki rahi bhavana jaisi, prabhu murat daikhi tin taisi (translates as you are allowed to believe anything but that ain't going to control the truth)
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LETHALFORCE
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/...502.html?cps=gravity_2444_-359259197336167252
The Hydrogen Bomb Reaches Retirement Age
The Hydrogen Bomb Reaches Retirement Age
LETHALFORCE
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http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2014/03/indian-tritium-exports-to-us.html
Indian Tritium Exports to the US?
Tritium is just one of the the essential ingredients of the Swan Device - the Swan acts as the "primary" in a two stage thermonuclear ("H") Bomb (see one below). The vast majority of nuclear weapons these days use Tritium in two stage thermonuclear weapons with very few stand alone one stage fusion boosted fission weapons.
-----------------
See a Swan style Tritium using"Primary" in the W88 two-stage thermonuclear warhead fitted to US Trident (SLBM) missiles.
---------------
Three examples of fusion boosted fission weapons that utilize Tritium. India may use/have used such weapons on the way to developing two stage thermonuclear weapons.
--------
I was thinking about the nuclear weapon benefits of Tritium the other day and was worried that the folks at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) South Carolina might not be producing enough Tritium for full US nuclear weapon functionality. Put simply Tritium makes nuclear weapons explode better. SRS is the only source of Tritium in the US. Tritium also has more minor medical diagnostic uses.
To elucidate this concern I came upon The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of the Inspector General Audit Report (OAS-L-14-01) of November 18, 2013 http://energy.gov/ig/downloads/audit-report-oas-l-14-01Management of Tritium within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) which is quite informative.
The problems is that Tritium decays rapidly in a nuclear warhead threatening the very integrity of nuclear explosions. The problem more technically is that Tritium is an extremely radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of around 12.3 years. 5.5% of Tritium decays into Helium-3 every year. Hence Tritium in one’s fusion boosted fission warhead or two-stage thermonuclear warhead is continually undergoing radioactive decay.
Put more technically Tritium enhances the efficiency and yield of fission bombs and the fission stages of hydrogen bombs in a process known as "boosting" as well as in external neutron initiators (triggers) for such weapons.
Put even more technically boosted fission weapons can be stand alone but more commonly act as "primaries". The high pressure and temperature environment at the center of an exploding fission weapon compresses and heats a mixture of Tritium and Deuterium gas (heavy isotopes of Hydrogen). The Hydrogen fuses to form Helium and free neutrons. The energy release from this fusion reaction is relatively negligible, but each neutron starts a new fission chain reaction, speeding up the fission and greatly reducing the amount of fissile material that would otherwise be wasted when expansion of the fissile material stops the chain reaction. Boosting can more than double the weapon's fission energy release.
A handy Indian reference reveals Tritium's progress in improving India’s fusion capability. India’s heavy water, natural uranium reactors produce more bomb usable Tritium than common garden light-water-moderated reactors (LWRs) http://www.ccnr.org/india_tritium.html
The US has had Tritium production worries since the 1990s. Hence the 2005 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement was concluded not only to benefit the US in terms of civilian cooperation but also make India a stopgap source of Tritium for nuclear weapons.
-
Pete
Posted by Peter Coates
Labels: DOE, fusion boosted fission, NNSA, Savannah River, SRNL, SRS, thermonuclear, Tritium, W88
Indian Tritium Exports to the US?
Tritium is just one of the the essential ingredients of the Swan Device - the Swan acts as the "primary" in a two stage thermonuclear ("H") Bomb (see one below). The vast majority of nuclear weapons these days use Tritium in two stage thermonuclear weapons with very few stand alone one stage fusion boosted fission weapons.
-----------------
See a Swan style Tritium using"Primary" in the W88 two-stage thermonuclear warhead fitted to US Trident (SLBM) missiles.
---------------
Three examples of fusion boosted fission weapons that utilize Tritium. India may use/have used such weapons on the way to developing two stage thermonuclear weapons.
--------
I was thinking about the nuclear weapon benefits of Tritium the other day and was worried that the folks at Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) South Carolina might not be producing enough Tritium for full US nuclear weapon functionality. Put simply Tritium makes nuclear weapons explode better. SRS is the only source of Tritium in the US. Tritium also has more minor medical diagnostic uses.
To elucidate this concern I came upon The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of the Inspector General Audit Report (OAS-L-14-01) of November 18, 2013 http://energy.gov/ig/downloads/audit-report-oas-l-14-01Management of Tritium within the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) which is quite informative.
The problems is that Tritium decays rapidly in a nuclear warhead threatening the very integrity of nuclear explosions. The problem more technically is that Tritium is an extremely radioactive isotope of hydrogen with a half-life of around 12.3 years. 5.5% of Tritium decays into Helium-3 every year. Hence Tritium in one’s fusion boosted fission warhead or two-stage thermonuclear warhead is continually undergoing radioactive decay.
Put more technically Tritium enhances the efficiency and yield of fission bombs and the fission stages of hydrogen bombs in a process known as "boosting" as well as in external neutron initiators (triggers) for such weapons.
Put even more technically boosted fission weapons can be stand alone but more commonly act as "primaries". The high pressure and temperature environment at the center of an exploding fission weapon compresses and heats a mixture of Tritium and Deuterium gas (heavy isotopes of Hydrogen). The Hydrogen fuses to form Helium and free neutrons. The energy release from this fusion reaction is relatively negligible, but each neutron starts a new fission chain reaction, speeding up the fission and greatly reducing the amount of fissile material that would otherwise be wasted when expansion of the fissile material stops the chain reaction. Boosting can more than double the weapon's fission energy release.
A handy Indian reference reveals Tritium's progress in improving India’s fusion capability. India’s heavy water, natural uranium reactors produce more bomb usable Tritium than common garden light-water-moderated reactors (LWRs) http://www.ccnr.org/india_tritium.html
The US has had Tritium production worries since the 1990s. Hence the 2005 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement was concluded not only to benefit the US in terms of civilian cooperation but also make India a stopgap source of Tritium for nuclear weapons.
-
Pete
Posted by Peter Coates
Labels: DOE, fusion boosted fission, NNSA, Savannah River, SRNL, SRS, thermonuclear, Tritium, W88
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LETHALFORCE
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http://in.rbth.com/russian_india_ex...drogen_bombs_essential_for_india_-_russ_36199
Possession of hydrogen bombs ‘essential’ for India - Russian analysts
Russian strategic experts believe that India would become a centre of power in a multi-polar world if it possessed hydrogen bombs.
Possession of a hydrogen bomb is essential to India to improve its image as a global power and become one of the centres of power in a multi-polar world, Russian experts said in reaction to a report from US intelligence think tank. IHS Jane’s said that a nuclear centrifuge plant constructed in 1992 near Mysore could be channelled towards making of hydrogen bombs.
At the moment, Russia, USA, China, Britain and France possess hydrogen bombs. The very fact that the second most populated country in the world will be in possession of an H-bomb is nothing strange and surprising, according to Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, retired judge of the International Security IMEMO. “This prediction is likely to be true. In India, levels of development in the nuclear field are high enough,” Dvorkin says. “Especially in the field of peaceful nuclear energy, it collaborates with the U.S., which allows it access to new technologies. And this does not carry any additional security threats. India has long been a nuclear state. It keeps its nuclear capability to deter Pakistan, on one hand, and on the other, somehow counterbalance China. I do not see anything special about it, and nothing unusually new in defiance with respect to Pakistan and China.”
India officially proclaimed itself a nuclear weapons state after a series of tests in Rajasthan in 1998. Operation Shakti was held under the Government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power.
According to Tatyana Shaumyan, expert at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Narendra Modi will try to preserve continuity of the party's policies on this issue. “This is necessary for the prestige of India. I do not foresee, at the moment, that threats have become acutely severe which traditionally exist for India's security,” Shaumyan says. “Especially, when the new government that has taken office, is trying to strengthen its relations with its neighbours and with China, where such a step has already been taken. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was at the inauguration of Narendra Modi. This has happened for the first time in the existence of the two states. Hence the hydrogen bomb for India - is a question of national identity and significance. I do not feel it is that critical a response to threats of India’s security.
Konstantin Sivkov, first vice-president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, noted that in the near future, India will be capable of mastering all three ways of delivering nuclear warheads. That is via aircrafts, ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines. “The world is heading towards an enhancement of military tensions and conflicts. Leveraging its nuclear potential, India wants to ensure its own security,” Sivkov says. “It is quite a legitimate aspiration of any country and an objective necessity of India. China is in possession of a thermonuclear bomb. The appearance of the hydrogen bomb in India could cause an explosion of indignation in the Chinese diplomacy and cause it to further develop its nuclear weapons. But China is on the way of almost openly being in conflict with the United States. It will continue building up its forces, including nuclear, not to compete with India, but with the United States.”
So far, China has not responded to findings of the report by IHS Jane’s. Pakistan has commented on it very guardedly. A representative of the ruling Pakistani Muslim League, said: “We do not want an arms race. This does not go in favour of both the countries.” In India itself, the report's findings are not being commented at all.
First published by the Voice of Russia.
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Possession of hydrogen bombs ‘essential’ for India - Russian analysts
Russian strategic experts believe that India would become a centre of power in a multi-polar world if it possessed hydrogen bombs.
Possession of a hydrogen bomb is essential to India to improve its image as a global power and become one of the centres of power in a multi-polar world, Russian experts said in reaction to a report from US intelligence think tank. IHS Jane’s said that a nuclear centrifuge plant constructed in 1992 near Mysore could be channelled towards making of hydrogen bombs.
At the moment, Russia, USA, China, Britain and France possess hydrogen bombs. The very fact that the second most populated country in the world will be in possession of an H-bomb is nothing strange and surprising, according to Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, retired judge of the International Security IMEMO. “This prediction is likely to be true. In India, levels of development in the nuclear field are high enough,” Dvorkin says. “Especially in the field of peaceful nuclear energy, it collaborates with the U.S., which allows it access to new technologies. And this does not carry any additional security threats. India has long been a nuclear state. It keeps its nuclear capability to deter Pakistan, on one hand, and on the other, somehow counterbalance China. I do not see anything special about it, and nothing unusually new in defiance with respect to Pakistan and China.”
India officially proclaimed itself a nuclear weapons state after a series of tests in Rajasthan in 1998. Operation Shakti was held under the Government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, when the Bharatiya Janata Party was in power.
According to Tatyana Shaumyan, expert at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Narendra Modi will try to preserve continuity of the party's policies on this issue. “This is necessary for the prestige of India. I do not foresee, at the moment, that threats have become acutely severe which traditionally exist for India's security,” Shaumyan says. “Especially, when the new government that has taken office, is trying to strengthen its relations with its neighbours and with China, where such a step has already been taken. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was at the inauguration of Narendra Modi. This has happened for the first time in the existence of the two states. Hence the hydrogen bomb for India - is a question of national identity and significance. I do not feel it is that critical a response to threats of India’s security.
Konstantin Sivkov, first vice-president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, noted that in the near future, India will be capable of mastering all three ways of delivering nuclear warheads. That is via aircrafts, ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines. “The world is heading towards an enhancement of military tensions and conflicts. Leveraging its nuclear potential, India wants to ensure its own security,” Sivkov says. “It is quite a legitimate aspiration of any country and an objective necessity of India. China is in possession of a thermonuclear bomb. The appearance of the hydrogen bomb in India could cause an explosion of indignation in the Chinese diplomacy and cause it to further develop its nuclear weapons. But China is on the way of almost openly being in conflict with the United States. It will continue building up its forces, including nuclear, not to compete with India, but with the United States.”
So far, China has not responded to findings of the report by IHS Jane’s. Pakistan has commented on it very guardedly. A representative of the ruling Pakistani Muslim League, said: “We do not want an arms race. This does not go in favour of both the countries.” In India itself, the report's findings are not being commented at all.
First published by the Voice of Russia.
LETHALFORCE
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Cross posted
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/18/world/nuclear-anxiety-the-overview-india-detonated-a-hydrogen-bomb-experts-confirm.html
NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE OVERVIEW; INDIA DETONATED A HYDROGEN BOMB, EXPERTS CONFIRM
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/18/world/nuclear-anxiety-the-overview-india-detonated-a-hydrogen-bomb-experts-confirm.html
NUCLEAR ANXIETY: THE OVERVIEW; INDIA DETONATED A HYDROGEN BOMB, EXPERTS CONFIRM
LETHALFORCE
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...n-bombs/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.837efd491275
The countries believed to have tested hydrogen bombs
The countries believed to have tested hydrogen bombs
Kay
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Let them keep guessing. There's only one way to find outhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news...n-bombs/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.837efd491275
The countries believed to have tested hydrogen bombs
LETHALFORCE
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https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2018/05/08/pokhran-tritium-triumph-india-hydrogen-bomb.html
POKHRAN2@20: Tritium triumph—How India perfected the hydrogen bomb
The three tests at Pokhran on Buddha Poornima have proved that India can build a bomb for every threat—a fission device, which proves the capability to build a quick and crude bomb (already proved in 1974); a low-yield device, which can be weaponised as a warhead for the Prithvis, and a thermonuclear device of superpower category, which can be converted into bombs of hundreds of kilotons.
It is the third one—the thermonuclear device—that has not just shocked but virtually terrified the White Houses, the Downing Streets, the Kremlins and the Forbidden Cities. From mere nuclear weapons capability, India has leapfrogged into a potential megaton superpower.
In fact, what emboldened the government to decide on a triple test, including a thermonuclear device, was actually a technological breakthrough achieved by BARC scientists in extracting tritium from heavy water available in the country's atomic power reactors. Interestingly, the technology was acquired as a result of human concern.
Scientists at India's nuclear installations were concerned about the radiation levels that reactor workers were exposed to, particularly from the high tritium levels contained in heavy water flowing around the moderator circuit in reactors. Workers in American or European or Russian reactors are not exposed to this particular risk as most countries (the main exception being Canada) use light water.
India had chosen heavy water as moderator in its reactors long ago. Heavy water has a high content of highly radioactive tritium, which is actually a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. BARC scientists wanted to reduce this, so that the workers are exposed to lower levels of radiation. First, they attempted to extract the tritium through water distillation, but soon abandoned it. For, the process turned out to be highly risky as the tritium extracted in this manner was obtained in liquid form, which is deemed to be hazardous.
So they thought of a chemical exchange process, followed by cryogenic distillation. In this method, tritium exists in liquid form only during the chemical exchange process. Through cryogenic distillation, it is converted into gas, which can be stored in reinforced containers. The tritium thus obtained is 90 per cent enriched, which incidentally is the requirement for the thermonuclear device. Incidentally, another hydrogen isotope, deuterium, can also be used for thermonuclear weapon design and this is why thermonuclear bombs are popularly called hydrogen bombs.
In short, the attempt to make heavy water in the reactors safer has yielded the key material for a thermonuclear device. A pilot detritiation plant was set up at the research reactor at Kalpakkam. Now, BARC is learnt to be planning to set up similar plants in all the power-generation reactors in the country. Which means, as more and more electricity is produced, there will be bigger and bigger stockpiles of tritium.
The detritiation technology developed by BARC is not only unique, but pioneering too. The United States is today facing a critical shortage of tritium. It stopped manufacture of tritium in the late 1980s as stockpiling of tritium is actually a wasteful exercise. For, tritium has a half life of 12.3 years; in other words, the stockpile will be reduced to 50 per cent in this period and the 'vanished' half would have converted into helium-3.
The United States, having stopped tritium production, is now faced with a major problem. It would not have enough tritium stockpiles to build newer thermonuclear bombs and warheads in the next century.
Now desperately searching for tritium, US scientists are thinking of manufacturing tritium through the age-old accelerator process, which is estimated to cost about $7 billion.
It is in this context that the Indian innovation assumes significance. For the BARC method is dirt-cheap compared with the American process and also makes use of heavy water, a material available in excess in India. Once an importer of heavy water, India exported 100 tonnes to South Korea last year.
The government is still reluctant to reveal the amount of heavy water produced in the country, but admits that the total manufacturing capacity of all the heavy water plants in the country would come to more than 650 tonnes a year. Now, even if US scientists were to succeed in developing the technology of extracting tritium from heavy water, that would serve no purpose. For, none of the US reactors uses heavy water.
Another desperate proposal in the United States is to approach Russia for tritium. Russia is expected to have a decent stockpile as it dismantled many of the aged warheads to conform to the strategic arms reduction treaties. The US expectation is that the tritium extracted from these dismantled warheads may be put for sale.
Tritium and deuterium are vital components of the thermonuclear bomb, which has no critical mass, unlike an ordinary fission bomb. So thermonuclear bombs of various intensities—from a few kilotons to megatons as in the case of the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles of the superpowers—can be fashioned with it. Tritium is essentially used in these bombs to boost the yield. Now, what India has demonstrated is that it can build a real mega-bomb of the superpower variety.
Of course, India is yet to acquire a bomber or a missile capable of delivering such a high-yield bomb.
Herein comes the relevance of Agni, which can carry a warhead weighing one tonne over 1,500 to 2,500km. Agni's second stage is learnt to have already been cleared by the government. And blueprints for an intercontinental ballistic missile are learnt to have already been prepared.
But those are plans for the future. Of immediate concern is whether India would convert the low-yield test into a low-yield bomb or warhead, which will cap the Prithvis, already manufactured and inducted (though yet to be deployed, say defence ministry officials). The two versions of the Prithvi—with ranges of 150km and 250km—are particularly designed as battlefield missiles that can strike at the
enemy's force concentrations, rather than soft targets like cities. To that extent, the Prithvi is hardly a weapon of deterrence. But a nuclear cap on its head would alter the scenario. Any potential enemy would think twice before moving his armoured columns within the range of a nuclear-tipped Prithvi.
The third test, of a fission device, was hardly any technological marvel. India had demonstrated its fission capability as far back as 1974 and a repetition of the test could only be interpreted as a demonstration of its bomb-making intentions.
For, in the event of India being forced to make a couple of bombs, which can be delivered from bombers, the fission route is believed to be the quickest and yielding credible deterrence.
Thus there is virtually a potential bomb for every occasion. If nuclear deterrence is to be achieved overnight, there can be a few fission bombs; if a credible deterrence with a missile force is to be achieved, there is the low-yield variety that can adorn the Prithvis. And for the long-term deterrence and superpower status, there is the thermonuclear one.
Interestingly, the three tests on Buddha Poornima day and the two sub-kiloton tests three days later have the combined effect of eliminating any need for further tests. For, the second round of two tests was exactly aimed at that. And that is a 'secret' now being exchanged between the big five exclusively in the wake of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations.
The technological politics behind the CTBT was that the big five nuclear powers are now willing to give up tests because they can conduct sub-kiloton tests (which are not prohibited by CTBT) and simulate them on computers to yield higher kilotons or even megatons. So, if, say, one of the big powers wants to build a new warhead of 100 kilotons, it would conduct a virtual laboratory test of less than one kiloton, feed the data into computers and project them into higher kilotons. The data thus projected can be used for building a new type of bomb.
The United States, which was originally opposing a comprehensive test ban, developed the technology only a couple of years ago. In fact, the National Ignition Facility is still under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco. Once it was certain that it needed no more high-yield tests to make newer bombs, the US suddenly began pushing for a total ban on tests.
But other nuclear powers, especially France, were still not ready for a complete ban. So, the United States offered to transfer the simulation technology to France and the two are now together building a Megajoule Laser Facility near Bordeaux. China too is believed to have extracted a similar assurance from the United States before it agreed to join the CTBT. In effect, the big five were pushing for a total test ban only after they were certain that they acquired simulation technology.
It is this technology, exchanged exclusively among the big five, that India has demonstrated in the second series of tests. Two sub-kiloton devices were exploded and the data gathered from them has been fed into supercomputers. In other words, India has proved that it has the capability to build bombs without conducting a full test.
The super scorcher
The hydrogen bomb is a fusion device. A vast amount of energy is released when common hydrogen isotopes like deuterium or tritium are fused. Fusion occurs at extremely high temperatures (millions of degrees). These reactions are known as thermonuclear (heat-induced) reactions. Hence, the weapon is known as a thermonuclear bomb. A hydrogen bomb needs an atom bomb to serve as a trigger. The atom bomb produces neutrons and the heat that is needed to ignite the hydrogen bomb. The yield or total energy released by a hydrogen bomb is expressed in megatons. About 500 grams of hydrogen can yield power equivalent to about 29 kilotons of TNT. A nuclear weapon's power is expressed in terms of TNT needed to produce an explosion of the same intensity.
POKHRAN2@20: Tritium triumph—How India perfected the hydrogen bomb
The three tests at Pokhran on Buddha Poornima have proved that India can build a bomb for every threat—a fission device, which proves the capability to build a quick and crude bomb (already proved in 1974); a low-yield device, which can be weaponised as a warhead for the Prithvis, and a thermonuclear device of superpower category, which can be converted into bombs of hundreds of kilotons.
It is the third one—the thermonuclear device—that has not just shocked but virtually terrified the White Houses, the Downing Streets, the Kremlins and the Forbidden Cities. From mere nuclear weapons capability, India has leapfrogged into a potential megaton superpower.
In fact, what emboldened the government to decide on a triple test, including a thermonuclear device, was actually a technological breakthrough achieved by BARC scientists in extracting tritium from heavy water available in the country's atomic power reactors. Interestingly, the technology was acquired as a result of human concern.
Scientists at India's nuclear installations were concerned about the radiation levels that reactor workers were exposed to, particularly from the high tritium levels contained in heavy water flowing around the moderator circuit in reactors. Workers in American or European or Russian reactors are not exposed to this particular risk as most countries (the main exception being Canada) use light water.
India had chosen heavy water as moderator in its reactors long ago. Heavy water has a high content of highly radioactive tritium, which is actually a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. BARC scientists wanted to reduce this, so that the workers are exposed to lower levels of radiation. First, they attempted to extract the tritium through water distillation, but soon abandoned it. For, the process turned out to be highly risky as the tritium extracted in this manner was obtained in liquid form, which is deemed to be hazardous.
So they thought of a chemical exchange process, followed by cryogenic distillation. In this method, tritium exists in liquid form only during the chemical exchange process. Through cryogenic distillation, it is converted into gas, which can be stored in reinforced containers. The tritium thus obtained is 90 per cent enriched, which incidentally is the requirement for the thermonuclear device. Incidentally, another hydrogen isotope, deuterium, can also be used for thermonuclear weapon design and this is why thermonuclear bombs are popularly called hydrogen bombs.
In short, the attempt to make heavy water in the reactors safer has yielded the key material for a thermonuclear device. A pilot detritiation plant was set up at the research reactor at Kalpakkam. Now, BARC is learnt to be planning to set up similar plants in all the power-generation reactors in the country. Which means, as more and more electricity is produced, there will be bigger and bigger stockpiles of tritium.
The detritiation technology developed by BARC is not only unique, but pioneering too. The United States is today facing a critical shortage of tritium. It stopped manufacture of tritium in the late 1980s as stockpiling of tritium is actually a wasteful exercise. For, tritium has a half life of 12.3 years; in other words, the stockpile will be reduced to 50 per cent in this period and the 'vanished' half would have converted into helium-3.
The United States, having stopped tritium production, is now faced with a major problem. It would not have enough tritium stockpiles to build newer thermonuclear bombs and warheads in the next century.
Now desperately searching for tritium, US scientists are thinking of manufacturing tritium through the age-old accelerator process, which is estimated to cost about $7 billion.
It is in this context that the Indian innovation assumes significance. For the BARC method is dirt-cheap compared with the American process and also makes use of heavy water, a material available in excess in India. Once an importer of heavy water, India exported 100 tonnes to South Korea last year.
The government is still reluctant to reveal the amount of heavy water produced in the country, but admits that the total manufacturing capacity of all the heavy water plants in the country would come to more than 650 tonnes a year. Now, even if US scientists were to succeed in developing the technology of extracting tritium from heavy water, that would serve no purpose. For, none of the US reactors uses heavy water.
Another desperate proposal in the United States is to approach Russia for tritium. Russia is expected to have a decent stockpile as it dismantled many of the aged warheads to conform to the strategic arms reduction treaties. The US expectation is that the tritium extracted from these dismantled warheads may be put for sale.
Tritium and deuterium are vital components of the thermonuclear bomb, which has no critical mass, unlike an ordinary fission bomb. So thermonuclear bombs of various intensities—from a few kilotons to megatons as in the case of the warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles of the superpowers—can be fashioned with it. Tritium is essentially used in these bombs to boost the yield. Now, what India has demonstrated is that it can build a real mega-bomb of the superpower variety.
Of course, India is yet to acquire a bomber or a missile capable of delivering such a high-yield bomb.
Herein comes the relevance of Agni, which can carry a warhead weighing one tonne over 1,500 to 2,500km. Agni's second stage is learnt to have already been cleared by the government. And blueprints for an intercontinental ballistic missile are learnt to have already been prepared.
But those are plans for the future. Of immediate concern is whether India would convert the low-yield test into a low-yield bomb or warhead, which will cap the Prithvis, already manufactured and inducted (though yet to be deployed, say defence ministry officials). The two versions of the Prithvi—with ranges of 150km and 250km—are particularly designed as battlefield missiles that can strike at the
enemy's force concentrations, rather than soft targets like cities. To that extent, the Prithvi is hardly a weapon of deterrence. But a nuclear cap on its head would alter the scenario. Any potential enemy would think twice before moving his armoured columns within the range of a nuclear-tipped Prithvi.
The third test, of a fission device, was hardly any technological marvel. India had demonstrated its fission capability as far back as 1974 and a repetition of the test could only be interpreted as a demonstration of its bomb-making intentions.
For, in the event of India being forced to make a couple of bombs, which can be delivered from bombers, the fission route is believed to be the quickest and yielding credible deterrence.
Thus there is virtually a potential bomb for every occasion. If nuclear deterrence is to be achieved overnight, there can be a few fission bombs; if a credible deterrence with a missile force is to be achieved, there is the low-yield variety that can adorn the Prithvis. And for the long-term deterrence and superpower status, there is the thermonuclear one.
Interestingly, the three tests on Buddha Poornima day and the two sub-kiloton tests three days later have the combined effect of eliminating any need for further tests. For, the second round of two tests was exactly aimed at that. And that is a 'secret' now being exchanged between the big five exclusively in the wake of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations.
The technological politics behind the CTBT was that the big five nuclear powers are now willing to give up tests because they can conduct sub-kiloton tests (which are not prohibited by CTBT) and simulate them on computers to yield higher kilotons or even megatons. So, if, say, one of the big powers wants to build a new warhead of 100 kilotons, it would conduct a virtual laboratory test of less than one kiloton, feed the data into computers and project them into higher kilotons. The data thus projected can be used for building a new type of bomb.
The United States, which was originally opposing a comprehensive test ban, developed the technology only a couple of years ago. In fact, the National Ignition Facility is still under construction at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory near San Francisco. Once it was certain that it needed no more high-yield tests to make newer bombs, the US suddenly began pushing for a total ban on tests.
But other nuclear powers, especially France, were still not ready for a complete ban. So, the United States offered to transfer the simulation technology to France and the two are now together building a Megajoule Laser Facility near Bordeaux. China too is believed to have extracted a similar assurance from the United States before it agreed to join the CTBT. In effect, the big five were pushing for a total test ban only after they were certain that they acquired simulation technology.
It is this technology, exchanged exclusively among the big five, that India has demonstrated in the second series of tests. Two sub-kiloton devices were exploded and the data gathered from them has been fed into supercomputers. In other words, India has proved that it has the capability to build bombs without conducting a full test.
The super scorcher
The hydrogen bomb is a fusion device. A vast amount of energy is released when common hydrogen isotopes like deuterium or tritium are fused. Fusion occurs at extremely high temperatures (millions of degrees). These reactions are known as thermonuclear (heat-induced) reactions. Hence, the weapon is known as a thermonuclear bomb. A hydrogen bomb needs an atom bomb to serve as a trigger. The atom bomb produces neutrons and the heat that is needed to ignite the hydrogen bomb. The yield or total energy released by a hydrogen bomb is expressed in megatons. About 500 grams of hydrogen can yield power equivalent to about 29 kilotons of TNT. A nuclear weapon's power is expressed in terms of TNT needed to produce an explosion of the same intensity.
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https://economictimes.indiatimes.co...nter-pakistans-nukes/articleshow/56743176.cms
Under Rajiv Gandhi, India was ready with H-Bomb to counter Pakistan's nukes
Under Rajiv Gandhi, India was ready with H-Bomb to counter Pakistan's nukes
