NATS 1945 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Nuclear Reaction

• School: York University
• Department: Natural Science
• Course: NATS 1945
• Professor: Robin Metcalfe

Document Summary

Nuclear weapon: an uncontrolled self-sustaining chain reaction induced in a contained fissile fuel, producing an explosion. Fuel kept sub-critical until detonation, triggered (cid:271)y (cid:374)eutro(cid:374) (cid:858)(cid:271)ullets(cid:859) A nuclear weapon is a device in which a nuclear chain reaction is induced in a fissile fuel, without restraining the rate of the chain reaction in any way. This has to be done in an contained environment. When the energy from the chain reaction is contained, the result is a very rapid build from a huge amount of energy. By rapid, meaning in fractions of a second. And the increasing energy pushes out on the container until the container explodes and the energy is released. N(cid:859)s are released fro(cid:373) the ato(cid:373)s that (cid:449)ere fissio(cid:374)ed (cid:271)y the i(cid:373)pa(cid:272)t so that those n(cid:859)s (cid:272)a(cid:374) fission other u-235 atoms, initiating a self-sustaining chain reaction. Efficiency (i. e. % chain reaction completed) has historically been low (<20%) due to premature detonation.