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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The bomb they dropped on Hiroshima I believe was a bullet/gun design. A bullet of fissile material was suspended at the other end of a barrel, with a big explosive charge behind it. Infront of the bullet was a sub-critical mass of fissile material, when the bomb gets detonated, the bullet is fired into the sub critical mass with enough force to initiate the full chain reaction almost instantly, resulting in a bigger, much bigger boom.
However, that involves shooting a fissile bullet into a fissile mass. If you’re talking about firing a single bullet of Uranium or Plutonium at a flat surface, the bullet would have to be huge in order to achieve any kind of chain reaction – the energy you would need to achieve that may also cause the bullet to shred and disintegrate before it even hits the target.
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