Lincolnshirebodger
Established Member
- Joined
- 12 Oct 2008
- Messages
- 116
- Reaction score
- 0
Ok look at THIS!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu88gb1EpmI
This is the Tsar Bomba, the largest 3 stage thermonuclear device every triggered.
It was orginally 100 megatons, but the final design would have weighed 35 tonnes, so they had to leave enough of the third stage Duterium fuel cells off to reduce the weight to 27 tonnes, the heaviest payload they could lift with a stripped down Tupolarev TU95 Bear Stratobomber. This reduced the payload to 'only 57' megatons.....
The ground shots are all from 100 km away. :shock:
The fireball was 4 km across, and because of this it had to be detonated at 4 km height. The explosion destroyed houses 40 km away and broke windows 100 km away.
A well known phenomenon in atmospheric explosions is the "double flash": an initial rapid peak in brightness that quickly drops, followed by a much slower rise to a second peak in luminosity that lasts much longer. The two peaks are similar to total luminosity, but as the second peak lasts 100 times as long, it accounts for 99% of the emitted light and thermal radiation. In small nuclear explosions, like the 20 kt Trinity test, the first peak passes so quickly that it cannot be seen (unless captured by a high speed camera). The first peak is reached, and the luminosity plunges to its minimum point in only 10 milliseconds. The human eye sees only the second peak, which is reached at 140 milliseconds. But the time scale stretches out as yield increases and in the 50 megaton test the first peak occurs at more than half a second (560 milliseconds), and the minimum occurs at 7 seconds. This is easily visible in the test footage.
Another interesting feature is the effect of the shock wave reflected from the ground striking the bottom of the fireball. Simply from fireball radius scaling laws, one would expect the fireball to reach down and engulf the ground around the hypocenter ("ground zero"). In fact, the shock wave reaches the ground before the fireball expansion can, and bounces upward, striking the bottom of the fireball, flattening it and driving it upward, thus preventing actual contact with the ground.
However it was never a weapon. The only way to haul it was very slowly on a Bear, and such an aircraft woudl have been a sitting duck. Also, theres no target in Europe big enough to justify such a large bomb, it was made as a political statement.
Thats Ghee Whiz Science !!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu88gb1EpmI
This is the Tsar Bomba, the largest 3 stage thermonuclear device every triggered.
It was orginally 100 megatons, but the final design would have weighed 35 tonnes, so they had to leave enough of the third stage Duterium fuel cells off to reduce the weight to 27 tonnes, the heaviest payload they could lift with a stripped down Tupolarev TU95 Bear Stratobomber. This reduced the payload to 'only 57' megatons.....
The ground shots are all from 100 km away. :shock:
The fireball was 4 km across, and because of this it had to be detonated at 4 km height. The explosion destroyed houses 40 km away and broke windows 100 km away.
A well known phenomenon in atmospheric explosions is the "double flash": an initial rapid peak in brightness that quickly drops, followed by a much slower rise to a second peak in luminosity that lasts much longer. The two peaks are similar to total luminosity, but as the second peak lasts 100 times as long, it accounts for 99% of the emitted light and thermal radiation. In small nuclear explosions, like the 20 kt Trinity test, the first peak passes so quickly that it cannot be seen (unless captured by a high speed camera). The first peak is reached, and the luminosity plunges to its minimum point in only 10 milliseconds. The human eye sees only the second peak, which is reached at 140 milliseconds. But the time scale stretches out as yield increases and in the 50 megaton test the first peak occurs at more than half a second (560 milliseconds), and the minimum occurs at 7 seconds. This is easily visible in the test footage.
Another interesting feature is the effect of the shock wave reflected from the ground striking the bottom of the fireball. Simply from fireball radius scaling laws, one would expect the fireball to reach down and engulf the ground around the hypocenter ("ground zero"). In fact, the shock wave reaches the ground before the fireball expansion can, and bounces upward, striking the bottom of the fireball, flattening it and driving it upward, thus preventing actual contact with the ground.
However it was never a weapon. The only way to haul it was very slowly on a Bear, and such an aircraft woudl have been a sitting duck. Also, theres no target in Europe big enough to justify such a large bomb, it was made as a political statement.
Thats Ghee Whiz Science !!