Essay On Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear weapons, a relatively new technology, have unparalleled power; the power to, quite literally, destroy nations and even the world. Such power is not an easy feat to obtain. Nuclear weapons are such a complicated system that it takes many years for countries to develop them, and many countries, today, have not advanced in their technological understanding of the weapons to create nuclear weapons. The development of nuclear weapons start with the attaining of enriched uranium and weapon grade plutonium. Aside from finding these elements in nature, which are scarcely found around the earth, the elements must be processed so that they may be used in nuclear weapons. The enrichment of natural uranium increases the percentage composition …show more content…
If bombarded with fast moving neutrons, depending on the element used, the atoms can split and create a chain reaction. The most commonly used elements in nuclear fission are plutonium-239 and urainium-235—used des depending on the weapon. These two elements, plutonium and uranium, can emit neutrons when they fission. When the elements release neutrons, those neutrons collide with other nuclei, causing more fission. Fission gives way to more fission; when neutron collide with other neutron, the nuclei splits and collides with more neutrons. Each of these fission reactions doubles with each increased fission; this is called a chain reaction. The chain reaction that occurs in nuclear fission is faster than the eye can process; it happens after microseconds. This chain reaction is what causes the explosion of a nuclear weapons. Inside a fusion weapon, in the most basic design, is a mass of enriched uranium or enriched plutonium, which is formed into a supercritical mass. A supercritical mass is a bulk of enriched elements “brought to a temperature and pressure higher than its critical temperature and pressure, so that its physical and chemical properties change.” Gathered in the supercritical mass of a nuclear weapon is the amount of enriched uranium or plutonium necessary to exponentially grow a nuclear chain reaction. There are two typical methods of causing a supercritical mass. The first method is by, essentially, throwing a piece of subcritical matter into another at a high enough velocity; referred to as the “gun method.” The second method to cause a supercritical mass is by compressing subcritical masses together, with the use of explosive lenses. Explosive lenses are a