The Effects of Nuclear Weapons
The Effects of Nuclear Weapons

Author: United States. Department of Defense

Publisher:

Published: 1977

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13:

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"When 'The Effects of Atomic Weapons' was published in 1950, the explosive energy yields of the fission bombs available at that time were equivalent to some thousands of tons (i.e., kilotons) of TNT. With the development of thermonuclear (fusion) weapons, having energy yields in the range of millions of tons (i.e., megatons) of TNT, a new presentation, entitled 'The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, ' was issued in 1957. A completely revised edition was published in 1962 and this was reprinted with a few changes early in 1964. Since the last version of 'The Effects of Nuclear Weapons' was prepared, much new information has become available concerning nuclear weapons effects. This has come in part from the series of atmospheric tests, including several at very high altitudes, conducted in the Pacific Ocean area in 1962. In addition, laboratory studies, theoretical calculations, and computer simulations have provided a better understanding of the various effects. Within the limits imposed by security requirements, the new information has been incorporated in the present edition. In particular, attention may be called to a new chapter on the electromagnetic pulse. The material is arranged in a manner that should permit the general reader to obtain a good understanding of the various topics without having to cope with the more technical details. Most chapters are thus in two parts: the first part is written at a fairly low technical level whereas the second treats some of the more technical and mathematical aspects. The presentation allows the reader to omit any or all of the latter sections without loss of continuity."--Preface.

Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons
Effects of Nuclear Earth-Penetrator and Other Weapons

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2005-10-06

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 0309096731

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Underground facilities are used extensively by many nations to conceal and protect strategic military functions and weapons' stockpiles. Because of their depth and hardened status, however, many of these strategic hard and deeply buried targets could only be put at risk by conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapons (EPW). Recently, an engineering feasibility study, the robust nuclear earth penetrator program, was started by DOE and DOD to determine if a more effective EPW could be designed using major components of existing nuclear weapons. This activity has created some controversy about, among other things, the level of collateral damage that would ensue if such a weapon were used. To help clarify this issue, the Congress, in P.L. 107-314, directed the Secretary of Defense to request from the NRC a study of the anticipated health and environmental effects of nuclear earth-penetrators and other weapons and the effect of both conventional and nuclear weapons against the storage of biological and chemical weapons. This report provides the results of those analyses. Based on detailed numerical calculations, the report presents a series of findings comparing the effectiveness and expected collateral damage of nuclear EPW and surface nuclear weapons under a variety of conditions.

Restricted Data
Restricted Data

Author: Alex Wellerstein

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-04-09

Total Pages: 558

ISBN-13: 022602038X

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"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--

Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculations in the TACWAR Code
Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculations in the TACWAR Code

Author: John W. Cane

Publisher:

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 131

ISBN-13:

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The study reviewed the accuracy of nuclear weapon effects data and algorithms used by the IDA TACWAR theater warfare simulation computer model to make damage evaluations. The report describes areas where improvements in specifying the nuclear explosion-generated effects--nuclear radiation, thermal radiation, and air blast--could be made.

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation
Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Author: Allan S. Krass

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-20

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 100020054X

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Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.