How to make a nuclear bomb

How do you make a nuclear bomb?

Earlier this week, Iran joined the growing list of countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons. On Monday the European Union said Iran’s nuclear reactors could make the radioactive raw materials needed for a nuclear bomb and demanded weapons inspectors be allowed in.

«You cannot make a nuclear bomb without fissile material,» says Andrew Furlong, of the Institute of Chemical Engineers. And for an average thermonuclear device, the necessary material is plutonium or enriched uranium.

Uranium, a naturally-occurring heavy metal, comes as uranium 238 or 235. Both are radioactive and will decay into other elements, given time, but only the latter can be forcibly split when neutrons are fired at it. This is the basis of a nuclear bomb.

When an atom breaks apart, it gives out energy and more neutrons, which can then split other atoms. Get enough atoms splitting and you have the chain reaction needed for a bomb blast.

And this is where the problems re ally begin. For every 25,000 tonnes of uranium ore, only 50 tonnes of metal are produced. Less than 1% of that is uranium 235. No standard extraction method will separate the two isotopes because they are chemically identical.

Instead, the uranium is reacted with fluorine, heated until it becomes a gas and then decanted through several thousand fine porous barriers. This partially separates the uranium into two types. One is heavily uranium 235, and called «enriched» while the rest is the controversial «depleted» uranium used to make conventional weapons.

You could use plutonium instead. According to Keith Barnham, a physicist at Imperial College, this is the preferred material because it makes much lighter weapons that can be mounted on to missiles.

Plutonium is produced as a by-product in nuclear reactors and only around 10kg is needed for a bomb. An average power plant needs about a year to produce enough and expensive reprocessing facilities are required to extract the plutonium from the fuel.

The chain reaction, explosion and familiar mushroom cloud then take care of themselves.

How to Make an Atomic Bomb

In easy steps

We will look today at what you need in order to make a nuclear fission bomb. You need some money, as it would really help if you were the prince, sultan or other royalty of a small, but rich state. If not, you need to know on a first name basis some evil leader with lots of cash, oil, diamonds and so on, of a small but ambitious country, with a need for revenge on the world.

Fission bombs derive their power from nuclear fission, where heavy nuclei (uranium or plutonium) are bombarded by neutrons and split into lighter elements, more neutrons and energy. These newly liberated neutrons then bombard other nuclei, which then split and bombard other nuclei, and so on, creating a nuclear chain reaction which releases large amounts of energy. These are historically called atomic bombs, atom bombs, or A-bombs, though this name is not precise due to the fact that chemical reactions release energy from atomic bonds (excluding bonds between nuclei) and fusion is no less atomic than fission. Despite this possible confusion, the term atom bomb has still been generally accepted to refer specifically to nuclear weapons and most commonly to pure fission devices.

a. The fissionable material

Plutonium239 isotope. Around 25 pounds (10 kg) would be enough. If you could find some Uranium235, that would be good, but not great. You would need to refine it using a gas centrifuge. The uranium hexafluoride gas is piped in a cylinder, which is then spun at high speed. The rotation causes a centrifugal force that leaves the heavier U-238 isotopes at the outside of the cylinder, while the lighter U-235 isotopes are left at the center. The process is repeated many times over through a cascade of centrifuges to create uranium of the desired level of enrichment. To be used as the fissile core of a nuclear weapon, the uranium has to be enriched to more than 90 per cent and be produced in large quantities.

You could try buying it from a former Soviet Republic, or from Iran, since they’re trying so hard to produce it. North Korea is not ready yet, and unfortunately, Iraqi dealers retired from the business.

b. The explosive to start the nuclear chain reaction

100 pounds (44 kg) of trinitrotoluene (TNT). Gelignite (an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or gun cotton) dissolved in nitroglycerine and mixed with wood pulp and sodium or potassium nitrate) would be better. Semtex would be good too, but it’s a bit hard to get, these days.

c. The detonator

To fabricate a detonator for the device, get a radio controlled (RC) servo mechanism, as found in RC model airplanes and cars. With a modicum of effort, a remote plunger can be made that will strike a detonator cap to effect a small explosion. These detonation caps can be found in the electrical supply section of your local supermarket. If you’re an electronics wiz, you should be able to make it using a cellphone.

The explosion shock wave might be of such short duration that only a fraction of the pit is compressed at any instant as it passes through it. A pusher shell made out of low density metal such as aluminium, beryllium, or an alloy of the two metals (aluminium being easier and safer to shape but beryllium reflecting neutrons back into the core) may be needed and is located between the explosive lens and the tamper. It works by reflecting some of the shock wave backwards which has the effect of lengthening it. The tamper or reflector might be designed to work as the pusher too, although a low density material is best for the pusher but a high density one for the tamper. To maximize efficiency of energy transfer, the density difference between layers should be minimized.

You will need to get the fissile material to the critical mass in order to start the chain reaction, which depends upon the size, shape and purity of the material as well as what surrounds the material. Your weapons-grade uranium will have to be in subcritical configuration.

First, you must arrange the uranium into two hemispherical shapes, separated by about 4 cm. Since it’s highly radioactive, the best way do it is to ask the friend owning the small country to let you use one his facilities. You could use a nuclear plant, a steel factory or even a well equipped pharmaceutical installation as a disguise for your plans.

It is not sufficient to pack explosive into a spherical shell around the tamper and detonate it simultaneously at several places because the tamper and plutonium pit will simply squeeze out between the gaps in the detonation front. Instead, the shock wave must be carefully shaped into a perfect sphere centered on the pit and traveling inwards. This is achieved by using a spherical shell of closely fitting and accurately shaped bodies of explosives of different propagation speeds to form explosive lenses.

After a few careful calculations, all you need now is to carefully pack and transport your nuclear bomb to the targeted location. If you happen to be an Al-Qaeda fan, you should try to infiltrate a military facility, for the psychological effect. Watch it, though, they are usually well guarded!

The smallest nuclear warhead deployed by the United States was the W54, which was used in the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle; warheads in this weapon weighed about 23 kg and had yields of 0.01 to 0.25 kilotons. This is small in comparison to thermonuclear weapons, but remains a very large explosion with lethal acute radiation effects and potential for substantial fallout. It is generally believed that the W54 may be nearly the smallest possible nuclear weapon, though this may be only smallest by weight or volume, not simply smallest diameter.

The best way to disguise it would be in the form of an ordinary appliance, like a copier, a widescreen TV set, or any other inconspicuous electronic device.

Now, all you have to do is transport it to the selected location and get to a safe distance of a few tens of miles, but not far enough to get out of the range of the remote detonator. That is why a cellphone is strongly recommended for its wide range capabilities.

How to Build a Nuclear Bomb. (This Is Not Real, Only Ment for Laughs and If You Seriously Want to Build One. I Pity You)

Introduction: How to Build a Nuclear Bomb. (This Is Not Real, Only Ment for Laughs and If You Seriously Want to Build One. I Pity You)

This is just for laughs. The opinions expressed here are the opinions of the individual and not of paramount pictures. If you are offended in any way by the statements said here within this instructable, then don’t read it, don’t complain and please don’t send it to others to read, get offended and then complain. Oh and i’ll eventually post a real instructable, I have plenty of great ideas but in the mean time enjoy my humor.

Step 1: Protection Is a Must.

First step, buy a lead cup. Sure it may slowly poison you but least the impotence won’t be from the radiation poisoning.

Step 2: Finding the Right Materials.

Build a rocket out of some old washing machines and melt down a few of those metal nuts and bolts aliens/predators for a shiny new coating.

Step 3: Procuring the Element.

Try to get hold of some Uranium 238 only to be looked at funny then laughed out of every science lab from here to Guantanamo bay.

Step 4: Always Be Prepared.

Get a can of surplus baked beans from the army, then place in the middle of rocket and ignite the rocket. oh no! I forgot to tell you how to actually construct the internal combustion engine for the rocket.

Step 5: Propulsion of a Different Kind.

Spend way too much money and time researching how to build a rocket engine after eating the heated can of baked beans.

Step 6: To Sleep the Enternal Sleep.

Die of lead poisoning from not from the cup you are wearing but the army surplus baked beans from 1957.

Step 7: Take Up Another Hobby.

Learn that if you don’t die from the radiation of the Uranium you need to make a nuclear bomb, then your diet and/or apparel will undoubtedly do you in. SO DON’T BUILD A NUCLEAR BOMB. Go and burn some ants with a magnifying glass or something.

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84 Comments

You need uranium 235 to make a nuclear weapon and if you really want to make a nuclear weapon just compres to masses of uranium 235 for long enough to reach supercritical mass you can achieve this by doing many things like the gun method used by the hiroshima bomb which uses a long metel tube with a basic explosibe at the end of.the barrel shortly followed by some uranium 235 then at the end of the barrel there is some more uranium 235 and then another method is where you form a sphere of shaped charges that will make a perfect shockwave to hold the uraniuk 235 that forms the next part of the bomb also spherical and then the next part is comprised of a device that will release neutron radiation the later of these methods is the best way as the first method can result in what is called a fizle these are atom bomb methods but the most powerfull of the nuclear bombs would be a fusion bomb

Here is how to build, or assemble, a real atomic bomb. Go visit a US Army recruiter and tell him or her that you want to work with nuclear weapons. They can help you.

11 years ago on Step 3

The science labs will laugh because you need Uranium 235 to make a bomb! And that you definitely can’t buy on ebay.

11 years ago on Step 7

dude. you have a great ironic random f*&^%$ up (maybe) sense of humor in some kind of way. just like me. lol. its funny.

hey if you want to make a nuclear bomb you should get weapons grade uranium 70%/ 88%/ 90% is just fine. you should make ball with it, i think there is 14kg of nuclear material. and put the explosives covering the ball and to detonate the uranium you nedd C4 or dynamite and blasting caps to detonate the primary charge the explosive. i advice dynamite because the explosion radius is circular instead c4 because the explosin force goes up.

11 years ago on Step 7

sorry not very funny or instructional in any way.
😛

13 years ago on Step 7

wow you said «only ment for laughs» i didnt laugh once. i didnt even expect to laugh maybe a slight chuckle. but no.

Reply 11 years ago on Step 7

I’m afraid that I have to agree. Except for the lead poisoned jockstrap 🙂

There is so much information about nuclear weaponry, true and false out of there, you have so many texts and diverse bits of data that you could compile with a humorous tone even filling in with fake data and other quips along the the lines of the jockstrap and you could have a grade-A funny-ible.

Keep trying. What does not kill you makes you stronger!

How to make a nuclear bomb

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How to Build an Atomic Bomb

With a few parts from a hardware store and some know-how, it is possible to build a weapon of mass destruction. Well, as long as you can find a few pounds of plutonium on Ebay to fuel it.

A 10 megaton H-bomb test.

The energy we release every day when driving our car or cooking on a stove comes from chemical reactions. Two or more chemicals react through the motion of electrons and the forming and breaking of chemical bonds. One familiar form of chemical reaction is combustion. For example, the oxygen in the air reacts with the substances in a candle to release heat and light. In chemical reactions the amount of measurable matter involves never changes, if you were able to capture all the soot, smoke and carbon dioxide released by the candle you would find they weigh exactly the same amount as the original candle and oxygen that reacted with it. The material changed form and released energy but did not disappear.

Einstein’s formula suggested that it was possible to get energy by what we now call a nuclear reaction. This is the conversion of matter to energy. What’s more, the amount of energy available in even a small amount of matter is, according to the formula, tremendous. Matter is just sort of a condensed version of energy, but it isn’t a one-to-one relationship. The conversion factor is the speed of light (already a huge number) squared (which makes it a really big number). We can picture this relationship by thinking about water and steam. You can cool steam (think of this as the energy) down and it becomes water (think of this as matter) or heat water up to make steam. It takes a lot of steam to create a few drops of water though, but only few a ounces of water to create a whole room full of steam. The same is true of energy and matter. In the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima only 600 milligrams of uranium (less than the weight of a dime) was converted to energy, but it released the same amount of power as at least 13,000 tons of the conventional chemical explosive TNT.

Converting matter to energy is no easy trick, however. The sun does it naturally by a process called fusion. The sun, a gigantic ball of mostly hydrogen gas, has intense pressures and heat created at its core by its gravity. It is under this heat and pressure that the hydrogen atoms fuse to create helium and release energy. Re-creating the intense conditions required to generate fusion on earth isn’t easy, however, so atomic bombs uses another process called fission.

1)A neutron strikes a uranium atom 2)The uranium atom is split into a krypton atom and a barium atom releasing some binding energy along with more neutrons. 3)The neutrons strike other uranium atoms starting the process all over again. (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2007)

A fission reaction is just the opposite of fusion. Instead of atoms being put together, they are split into pieces. When a neutron (a subatomic particle) with enough energy hits an atom of radioactive material like uranium, the uranium atom will split into two smaller atoms and some of the energy that held the original atom together is released. If the right type of uranium is used, the split will also release additional neutrons capable of splitting other atoms. If this process continues with each new split releasing neutrons which in turn split other atoms it is called a chain reaction. Because of the speed involved in a nuclear reaction, billions of atoms can be split in a tiny fraction of a second. If the reaction proceeds at a sedate level the fission produces energy in a controllable manner. This is what is going on in the heart of a nuclear power plant. The energy released is used to heat water to the point of steam and the steam spins turbines connected to generators to make electricity. If the reaction proceeds at an uncontrolled level, however, a nuclear explosion can result.

This might seem to make nuclear power plants potential atomic bombs, but the uranium used in the plants is not the type that could sustain a reaction at a rate high enough to cause an explosion by itself (nuclear power plants are subject to explosions caused by steam pressure and other non-nuclear forces, however). In fact, engineering a device that does not tear itself apart before the explosion really gets underway is one of the main design problems of building a bomb.

A conventional explosive drives the uranium «bullet» into the «spike;» bringing the mass to supercritical and causing the detonation. (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2007)

The «gun» is the simplest way to build a nuclear weapon. The atomic bomb used on Hiroshima during World War II used this approach. The weapon consists of a tube (much like the barrel of a gun) with half the nuclear charge fixed at one end and the other half (the moving half) at the opposite end. A conventional explosive charge was placed behind the moving portion which can be thought of as the «bullet.» When the conventional charge is detonated, the bullet races down the tube and slams into the fixed charge at the other end (referred to as the «spike»). Once the two halves of the nuclear fuel are brought together and held together long enough, the chain reaction starts, the fuel goes supercritical and the explosion takes place.

While the gun method is easy to engineer, it has some drawbacks. The biggest one is the need to make sure the two parts of nuclear fuel come together rapidly enough. As the two sections get about an inch apart, they will start exchanging neutrons that might start a chain reaction. If the two parts go supercritical before they get close enough, the force of the energy released will blow them apart before the main explosion gets underway. This type of failure is known as a «fizzle.»

Another problem is that this method is less efficient, requiring between 20 and 25 kilograms (around 44 to 55 pounds) of uranium. Other approaches can use as little as 15 kilograms (about 33 pounds). Given that weapon’s grade uranium and plutonium are very hard to get, this is a real disadvantage.

Also, the gun method only works if the uranium is being used as the fuel. The process of creating plutonium generally causes it to be contaminated with other materials which increase the chance of it going supercritical before the two sections are close enough together. This, in turn, increases the chances of a fizzle instead of a blast. To make the gun method work reliably with plutonium, you would have to increase the speed with which the «bullet» approached the «spike» significantly. To do this would mean making the tube impracticality long.

The Implosion Design

Conventional explosives press on the «tamper/pusher,» compressing the plutonium until it reaches a supercritical mass. The initiator floods the area with neutrons to help get the chain reaction going. (Copyright Lee Krystek, 2007)

For this reason, if you use plutonium to fuel a bomb you need to use the more sophisticated «implosion» method. With this approach the nuclear fuel is shaped into a sphere (called the «pit»). Conventional explosives are put around it. When these are detonated the force of the explosion squeezes the pit into a supercritical mass long enough for the explosion to take place. While the principle sounds easy, it is difficult to actually make it work. The pit cannot simply be surrounded by high explosives. The shock wave that compresses it must be precisely spherical, otherwise the pit material will escape out through a weak point. To create the necessary explosive force in a perfect sphere, shaped explosive charges (sometimes called explosive lens) are used. The «fatman» bomb the leveled Nagasaki in World War II used 32 charges arranged around the pit like the faces of a soccer ball. In order to create the spherical shock wave it isn’t only necessary to get the charges in the right position with the right shape, but they must be detonated at exactly the right time. A charge that detonates late will create a hole in the shock wave through which the pit can escape.

Implosion designs also require a neutron trigger or «initiator» to flood the pit with neutrons during detonation. In «fatman» this was done with a small sphere with layers of beryllium and polonium separated by thin gold foil placed in the center of the pit. An implosion design may also include other layers between the explosives and the pit to create a more powerful explosion. These include a «pusher» (designed to increase the explosive shock wave hitting the pit), a «tamper» (to help the pit from blowing apart too quickly once the explosion starts), and a «reflector» composed of a material that will reflect neutrons back in the pit increasing the amount of fission. In some bomb designs these functions are integrated into a single layer of material.

A Supercritical Accident

The plutonium sphere resting in the fatal testbed.

In 1945 an atomic bomb worker, Harry K. Daghlian Jr, was killed while experimenting with plutonium. The test was designed to see just how much of a neutron reflector was needed to push the sphere of plutonium to the edge of going supercritical with the experimenter gauging how close he was getting by listening to a Geiger counter. As he moved the final «brick» of reflective material close to the sphere he realized he should not place it in position, but then it slipped from his hand. Daghlian knocked the brick away, but it was too late. The sphere went supercritical with a flash of blue light. He was exposed to 510 REMs of radiation and after an agonizing illness, died 28 days later.

The implosion design is generally considered to be superior in almost every way to the gun design and it is the choice for any organization with the resources to design and construct it. One of the major advantages of this approach is that it is easy to make the implosion design more efficient by increasing the effectiveness of the conventional explosives. For example, if the pit is squeezed so that the density is doubled during detonation it may yield a 10-kiloton explosion. If that same pit can be compressed to three times its original density, a 40-kiloton explosion can be generated with no additional nuclear fuel. The longer the fission material is allowed to react, the bigger the explosion.

Could You Build a Bomb?

Building a basic nuclear weapon is not easy, but not all that hard either. In 1964 the U.S. Army decided to see just how difficult it was. They hired two professors that had Ph.Ds in physics, but no experience with nuclear weapons or access to nuclear secrets. The two were given the task of designing an atomic bomb using only information available to the general public. It took them roughly two years, but in the end they designed an implosion style weapon that could have been made in a local machine shop which could have produced an explosion similar to the Hiroshima bomb.

The only thing that they found extremely difficult to do was to get the proper material to fuel the bomb: uranium 235 or plutonium 239. Only a tiny fraction of natural uranium that is mined from the ground is isotope 235 and separating it from the other isotopes is a major chore requiring huge factory complexes working years to isolate just a few pounds. In fact, most weapons programs get around this by utilizing plutonium, which is very rarely in found nature at all, but can be created by exposing more common types of uranium to radiation in a nuclear «breeder» reactor. Plutonium is extremely difficult to handle, however. It is one of the most toxic materials known to man, especially if inhaled.

It is the difficulty of getting and handling these fissionable materials that protects us from people building nuclear bombs in their basements. It is for this reason nonproliferation of nuclear material is a major concern of most governments and there is great apprehension about countries who want to build nuclear reactors capable of «breeding» plutonium fuel. Knowledge of how to build a bomb is hard to control. Fortunately, so far, the materials needed have been much easier to keep track of.