Ivy Mike
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Nuclear test Ivy Mike
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.jpg) Mushroom cloud of explosion |
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| information | |
| nation |
 United States
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| Test series | Operation ivy |
| Test location | Elugelab Island |
| date | October 31, 1952 7:15 p.m. GMT |
| Test type | Surface test |
| Test height | 3 meter |
| Weapon type | Hydrogen bomb |
| Explosive power | 10.4 MT |
Ivy Mike is the short name for the US nuclear test , code-named Mike, which was carried out on November 1, 1952 as part of Operation Ivy . This first large hydrogen bomb released an energy ("explosive force") of 10.4 megatons of TNT equivalent , a value that has only been exceeded three times in all subsequent US above-ground tests. The place of the experiment was the island of Elugelab in Eniwetok -Atoll in what was then the Pacific Islands trust area . The island was completely destroyed and no longer exists.
prehistory
The idea of using nuclear fusion processes as energy sources in weapons as well as nuclear fission had been discussed by physicists in the USA since 1942. The order to develop the hydrogen bomb was given by President Truman in January 1950, still under the influence of the first Soviet nuclear test in August 1949.
“It is part of my responsibility as Commander in Chief of the Armed forces to see to it that our country is able to defend itself against any possible aggressor. Accordingly, I have directed the AEC to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or Super bomb. "
“It is part of my responsibility as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces to ensure that our country can defend itself against any possible aggressor. I have therefore instructed the Atomic Energy Commission to continue work on all types of nuclear weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bomb. "
The development work took place in the Los Alamos Laboratory , partly with theoretical and physical support from Project Matterhorn at Princeton University . The first test explosions in Eniwetok Atoll in 1951 (see Operation Greenhouse ) confirmed that thermonuclear "burning" was not just a theoretical idea, but actually achievable.
On September 24, 1951, the Soviet Union tested its second atomic bomb; in the United States, this was made public through the White House announcement on October 3rd. Then, by the end of 1952, the first American hydrogen bomb based on the Teller-Ulam design described in 1951 and considered a "breakthrough" was to be produced. From several possible fusion fuels, cryogenic liquid deuterium was chosen because of its easier theoretical predictability , although this required special technical effort. All calculations for the construction of the explosive device had to be carried out by hand (by assistants with mechanical desktop computers), because the digital computer MANIAC I of the Los Alamos Laboratory was not operational until the spring of 1952. The calculations for "Mike" suggested an energy release of 7 megatons.
The explosive device
The result of the development was a complex, 62-ton apparatus - by no means a completely transportable "bomb" - which corresponded to the principle of the three-stage hydrogen bomb .
The double-insulated dewar flasks for transporting and storing the liquid deuterium held 2000 liters. Your cooling system worked with liquid helium. They were mounted on truck trailers and stored with shock absorption. A separate diesel generator on each trailer supplied the technology with electricity.
The explosive device, called "Sausage" (German sausage) because of its shape, was 6.19 meters high and 2.03 meters in diameter. The cylindrical casing, rounded at the top and bottom, made of 25 to 30 centimeters thick forged steel, was lined on the inside with lead and polystyrene foam. Inside, above the double-insulated cylindrical Dewar flask with the deuterium, was a TX-5 atomic bomb with 50 kT explosive force to ignite the nuclear fusion. The center axis of the deuterium container was formed by a "spark plug" made of plutonium- 239, which in turn contained a small amount of a deuterium- tritium mixture inside. The dewar was wrapped in a jacket made from five tons of natural uranium . Six pipes were welded to the outer shell of the whole, through which the radiation from the beginning reaction could be conducted to measuring devices.
Preparations
Eniwetok Atoll, where American nuclear weapons had been tested as early as 1948 during Operation Sandstone and 1951 during Operation Greenhouse , had been chosen as the test site .
The Joint Task Force 132 , a special unit made up of Army, Navy and Air Force officers and civilian scientists from the United States Atomic Energy Commission , took care of the expansion of the bases on the islands of Eniwetok and Parry in 1952. A facility for the production of liquid hydrogen and the distillation of deuterium was built on Parry, and the existing facilities for the production of liquid nitrogen were enlarged. The production was directed by Ohio State University .
The test itself was to take place on Elugelab, an island less than 1 square kilometer in the north of the atoll, about 40 kilometers from the bases. Elugelab and three neighboring islands were connected by dams. The islands themselves were cleared of vegetation and leveled. A six-storey high hall for the explosive device was built on Elugelab, next to it a 114-meter-high grid radio mast, with which the measurement data of the bomb should be transmitted to the control points. In the immediate vicinity of the “shot cab”, on rafts in the lagoon and on 30 neighboring islands, a total of 500 different sensors for pressure and temperature measurement were installed. The X-ray, gamma-ray and neutron radiation of the beginning reaction was to be sent to a measuring bunker on the neighboring island of Bogon through a 2.4 by 2.4-meter-long and 2.7-kilometer-long square tube made of multiplex plates , which contained helium-filled balloons be guided. Various metal parts were attached to long chains around the explosive device in order to investigate their behavior after the expected exposure to neutrons.
All individual parts as well as the Dewar flasks mounted on truck trailers were transported by landing craft through the lagoon to Elugelab and assembled in the "shot cab". The TX-5 detonator was modified shortly before the test. It received a new core with a lower plutonium content in order to prevent "pre-ignition" and the possible failure of the test.
In the last days of October, after the final approval of the President and the National Security Council, the construction was completed. After completing all functional tests, the last technicians left Elugelab shortly after midnight on November 1st. The test was then monitored from the landing force command ship USS Estes , which was located about 15 kilometers south of the atoll. There were three separate radio links to the test building on Elugelab, which, among other things , transmitted a live television image from the monitoring instruments to the Estes . Surveillance planes, mostly B-29 and C-54 equipped with photo and film cameras, took off from bases on the neighboring atolls . A B-36 and a B-47 were supposed to test the effects of a thermonuclear explosion on a carrier aircraft. Some F-84 fighters were supposed to collect air samples from the mushroom cloud and the surrounding area.
explosion
After the detonation of the explosive device, the nuclear fission and fusion reactions took place within a few nanoseconds . The fireball of the explosion grew in a few seconds to almost 5 kilometers in diameter (for comparison: the fireball of the Hiroshima bomb Little Boy had a diameter of 160 meters). New, previously undiscovered elements such as Einsteinium ( atomic number 99) and Fermium (100) were formed in the fireball .
The island of Elugelab and everything that was on it disappeared completely.
The surrounding islands were swept empty by the pressure waves up to 10 kilometers away. Instead of the island of Elugelab, there was a crater in the reef, over 3 kilometers in diameter and 60 meters deep. The measuring bunker on Bogon survived the explosion badly damaged. A total of around 80 million tons of earth were thrown up.
The mushroom cloud from the explosion reached a height of over 17 kilometers after 90 seconds; after two and a half minutes, when the shock wave from the explosion reached the fleet south of the atoll, the cloud was already 30 kilometers high. Its maximum dimension was over 43 kilometers with a diameter of 150 kilometers.
The circling B-47 and B-36 bombers measured the impact of the pressure and heat waves on possible carrier aircraft; shortly after the explosion, several F-84s flew into the mushroom cloud to collect air samples. A very high level of radioactivity was measured, far higher than had been expected by all scientists.
Edward Teller , who had not traveled to Eniwetok for the test, observed the effects of the explosion on a seismometer in the basement of a geophysical institute at Berkeley University. Before the scientists at the Los Alamos Laboratory had received confirmation of success via secure channels, Teller sent them a telegram the words "It's a boy" ( English for "It's a boy" ).
Effects
The islands before the explosion
The islands after the explosion
With an explosive force of 10.4 megatons TNT equivalent determined from the measurement data , Mike was much stronger than expected. 77% of the explosive force (8 megatons) came from the splitting of the uranium mantle by the fast neutrons from nuclear fusion. The resulting, very strong fallout was largely carried out to the open ocean northeast of the atoll by favorable winds.
Investigation teams found seabirds with singed and burned feathers in the vicinity of the explosion site at a distance of over 20 kilometers. Many birds showed radiation sickness . Almost all plants and trees on the islands were scorched by the intense heat on the side facing the explosion, and burned on the closer islands.
Web links
- archive.org: Video / Stream for Operation Ivy (English)
- nuclearweaponarchive.org: Ivy Mike (English)
- youtube.com: 1000 x Hiroshima - Documentation by NZZ Format (1996)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b nuclearweaponarchive.org ; As of July 4, 2007.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Kenneth W. Ford: Building the H Bomb - A Personal History. World Scientific, Singapore 2015, ISBN 978-981-4632-07-2 .
- ^ A b c Richard Rhodes: Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Simon and Schuster, New York 1995, ISBN 0-684-80400-X , p. 482 ff.
- ^ PR Fields, MH Studier, H. Diamond, JF Mech, MG Inghram, GL Pyle, CM Stevens, S. Fried, WM Manning ( Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois ); A. Ghiorso, SG Thompson, GH Higgins, GT Seaborg ( University of California, Berkeley, California ): Transplutonium Elements in Thermonuclear Test Debris. In: Physical Review . 102 (1), 1956, pp. 180-182. doi: 10.1103 / PhysRev.102.180
- ↑ Michael Light: 100 Suns. 2003.
- ↑ Dr. Teller's Very Large Bomb (Documentary, 2006)
- ↑ gwu.edu
Coordinates: 11 ° 40 ′ N , 162 ° 11 ′ E