So I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and I haven’t really been able to answer my question no matter how much I look into it, I was wondering if you guys could help.
So I was wondering, the critical mass of nuclear material is easier to achieve if the material is denser. I’m also aware that this is kinda how some nuclear bombs work, by launching a chunk of material at more material to cause the explosion. (I think?)
So in that case, what would happen if you grabbed a ball of Uranium or Einsteinium and threw it at the ground hard enough? Would it go critical? If so, how hard would you have to throw it and how big would the ball need to be?
As an optional bonus if all the aforementioned is possible, if the mass of Uranium were say, the size of a bullet, how fast would you need to fire the bullet in order to achieve criticality by kinetic impact alone?
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I don’t think throwing at the ground will increase density enough before the shape becomes very suboptimal (it’s not only about density, it’s about how many neutrons escape the blob and how many are absorbed).
If nuclear fuel is malleable (I have no clue), you could probably design a non-spherical shape (like a teardrop pointing down maybe?) so that when you shoot it very hard against a concrete floor it becomes closer to a sphere. Not sure how much the specific properties of the concrete can vary without affecting the result strongly.
Then you can start from a mass that is subcritical when it’s teardrop-shaped, but supercritical when it’s a sphere. If I remember correctly, one of the problems with such “simpler” designs (like the gun-type Little Boy) is they’re less efficient than spherical designs.
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