Richard appeared at the spell testing ground at the bottom of the sinkhole in the Garden of Eden.
This is already the seventh day since the production of nuclear weapons began.
After a week, he completed the first four important processes of nuclear weapons production, as well as many tedious processes that followed, pushing the progress to 60%, with 40% remaining, waiting to be completed. .
And now, what he has to do is the more important step in the 40% progress - the experiment of nuclear weapons detonating explosives.
As mentioned before, nuclear weapons like atomic bombs are composed of detonation control systems, high-energy explosives, reflective layers, nuclear components containing nuclear charges, neutron sources and cartridge cases.
The high-energy explosives are the energy source for pushing and compressing the reflective layer and the nuclear charge. In other words, it is high explosives that violently pile up the previously manufactured uranium metal components of the "Crystal Heart" together, reaching a supercritical state, and then triggering a nuclear explosion.
If it is a gun-type atomic bomb, the setting of high-energy explosives is extremely simple, as long as it can explode.
However, in order to avoid waste and save the hard-won uranium 235 nuclear raw materials, the atomic bomb made by Richard was not a gun type, but an implosion type.
This requires that high explosives not only be able to explode, but also must explode to meet standards.
What do you mean by meeting standards
Generally speaking, implosion-type high explosives are composed of dozens or hundreds of pieces, arranged in an oval shape and installed inside the nuclear weapon, looking like a pearl necklace.
In order to allow the metal uranium components to be squeezed to the maximum extent, it is necessary to ensure that each "pearl (explosive block)" on this "pearl necklace" can be detonated together, and then the impact force of the explosion passes through the rhenium-tungsten alloy The conduction of the component acts on the uranium metal component at the same instant.
The most important thing is at the same time.
It has to be at the same time.
The error cannot exceed one microsecond, which is one millionth of a second.
Because the explosive explodes very quickly.
Low-grade explosives such as mercury fulminate can have detonation speeds of several thousand meters per second, while high-grade explosives such as "RDX", "Tai'an" and "Oktojin" can have detonation speeds close to per second. Ten thousand meters per second.
Monsters such as "CL-20 (hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane)" and "DNAF (4,4'-dinitro-3,3'-azofurazan oxide)" have explosion speeds directly exceeding 10,000 per second. After reaching the meter mark, there are still ultimate explosives such as pentazole anion salts and metallic hydrogen①.
Even if the detonation speed of the explosive is controlled at 8,000 meters per second, the difference in one microsecond is only eight millimeters, which is close to one centimeter.
This distance is fine elsewhere, but in nuclear weapons, it is fatal, so they must be detonated at the same time.
And just detonating explosives at the same time is just the beginning.
You must know that the spread of explosions and the release of power extend from a point to a ball. Even if all the explosives can be guaranteed to detonate at the same time, countless "spherical pressure surfaces" will be used to squeeze the uranium metal components.
Just like using countless inflated basketballs to squeeze a huge dough, it is impossible to ensure that there will be no dents on the surface of the dough.
If there are dents, there are defects.
Therefore, even if the detonation time error of all explosives is strictly controlled within one microsecond, it still cannot meet the design requirements of an implosion atomic bomb.
According to the design requirements of the implosion atomic bomb, the spherical surface pressure must be turned into a plane pressure, and the metal uranium components must be squeezed with a flat surface. Only in this way can the metal uranium components be squeezed tightly enough to achieve a higher supercritical state, and a larger Quantity utilization of hard-won nuclear raw materials.
But, how does a sphere become a flat surface
Explosives are not obedient and will not spread as outsiders tell them. It will only faithfully release its power in accordance with the rules of physics.
Between two points, the line segment is the shortest.
As long as the distortion of space is not considered under the framework of classical mechanics, then according to the shortest path law, power is transmitted from one point to the surroundings, and a sphere is ultimately formed.
Always a ball.
ball!
In order to solve this ball, there is only one way, and that is to use composite explosive blocks.
Yes, a compound explosive block.
Composite explosive blocks, as the name suggests, are composed of a variety of different explosives.
As we all know, different types of explosives have different detonation velocities, so the explosive block can be designed like this: low-speed explosives in the middle, medium-speed explosives on the outside, and high-speed explosives on the outermost.
When an explosive detonates, low-velocity explosives will travel slowly, medium-velocity explosives next, and high-velocity explosives very quickly. In this way, the pressure surface that is originally a spherical diffusion will be depressed to a certain extent, forming a flat surface in a specific direction.
In actual operation, certain optimization can also be carried out.
For example, only two explosives with different detonation speeds are needed. In each explosion zone, the propagation speed of the explosive can be controlled by adjusting the ratio of low-speed explosives and high-speed explosives.
To give an example: For example, the detonation velocity of high-speed explosives is 3, and the detonation velocity of low-speed explosives is 1. In the middle explosive zone, make an explosive column, fill the upper third with low-velocity explosives, and fill the lower two-thirds with high-speed explosives, so that the speed of the entire explosive column will be balanced to 2.
As for the outer explosive zone, the upper one-sixth of the explosive column can be filled with low-speed explosives, and the lower five-sixths of the explosive column can be filled with low-speed explosives. In this way, the speed of the entire explosive column will be balanced to about 2.7, which is different from the central explosive zone, and finally produce pressure plane.
What Richard is doing now is to use different explosives and adjust different ratios to test which explosive types are the most stable and which explosive ratios can meet the requirements.
Richard stood at the magic research field, took out the explosive pillars from the space iron ring, and began to arrange them carefully around a fist-sized test target.
The arrangement is completed and detonated decisively.
"Boom boom boom!"
In the spell testing ground, explosions continued to sound, and Richard continued to test.
It has to be said that in order to find the most suitable value of explosives for detonating nuclear weapons, very tedious testing is required. Moreover, every test requires no error at all.
Because at the high detonation speed of explosives, every error will be magnified hundreds of times, resulting in failure.
Fortunately, with the guidance of mathematics, more than 99% of the wrong options can be eliminated in advance. You only need to repeatedly test the correct ones to find the optimal solution.
"Boom boom boom!"
Time keeps passing.
…
In the blink of an eye, another three days passed.
In three days, Richard conducted dozens and hundreds of explosion tests at the magic testing ground. He finally solved the problem of detonating explosives, determined what kind of composite detonating explosive was most suitable, and produced a sufficient quantity. Come.
In other words, in three days, a big step was taken towards the complete production of nuclear weapons.
…
Note ①: For information on the detonation velocity of explosives, please refer to Chapter 386 "Pentazole Anion Salts" of this book for details.