Fun with nuclear dampers

[Carlobrand]

Thinking about nuclear dampers. The things can neutralize a warhead in less than a second. Think about that for a moment.

We'll assume plutonium - smaller critical mass and relatively easy to make. Half life around 24 thousand years, about a 50 year "shelf life" if you want to be sure you don't get a fizzle. Decays by throwing off an alpha, mostly. So, the damper needs to induce 50 years of decay in a second to disable the warhead. Increase decay rate by about 1 1/2 billion. Except ... Pu generates about a half joule of heat per mole. Melts at 2820 joules per mole. Vaporizes at 333,500 joules per mole. Render it inert, you get an explosion as this solid suddenly becomes a gas. Okay in space, not so nice for ground troops.

Take it back a few orders of magnitude. Even just shy of melting, it's around 1100 degrees F. What happens to the explosives when exposed to an 1100 degree mass of metal? Deflagration at the very least. Little boom instead of big BOOM. Dirty bomb. Still hard on the troops.

I can't see a way to do this without the thing exploding.

 

[McPerth]

IIRC, the dampers either streghten or weaken the strong nuclear forces.

I'm not an expert on physics, but I guess if they strenghten them, they make nuclear fission more difficult, but they make fusoin easier, and vice versa if they weaken them.

So, I see a problema on this. If they are used to strenghten them, a fissoin trigger may fail, but, if they are laser detonated (as MT tells most TL13+ are), they would not affect (or even reinforce) the fusion reaction...

 

[aramis]

Dampers can trigger the warheads at distance. Raise the decay rate, and you get a dirty fizzle or even a detonation...

 

[Carlobrand]

Let's clarify what we're dealing with. Dampers "suppress the strong nuclear force". The strong nuclear force is the force "responsible for binding together the fundamental particles of matter to form larger particles." This is the glue that makes quarks into protons and neutrons, the strongest of the forces.

https://www.livescience.com/48575-strong-force.html

I'm not sure how that translates into something that "mak(es) atomic nuclei shed neutrons at low energy levels". That sounds more like the weak nuclear force, which holds nuclei together, but I'm no expert.

If, as I suspect, the thing affects the weak nuclear force, the primary decay mode of Pu-239 is to throw off an alpha particle - a helium nucleus. It does spontaneously fission - 10.1 fissions per second per kilogram, according to this site.

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq12.html

So, while suppressing the weak force will increase the number of neutrons being generated, mostly it's releasing energy through alpha decay.

A fizzle is not necessarily a minor event. Fizzles in U.S. testing ranged from the Buster Able test that yielded a blast equivalent to less than a pound of TNT (which likely meant only the explosive went off) to the Hardtack II Hamilton 1.2 Kt fizzle to fizzles in the hundred kiloton range when fission triggers blew but failed to trigger the fusion reaction in a bomb that had been expected to yield a megaton blast. For our purposes, assuming the designers have figured out exactly the right amount of suppression to trigger the smallest effect that kills the nuke, a low-end fizzle is almost indistinguishable from a deflagration detonation of the explosives due to heat. Basically like a gunpowder bomb. Little boom instead of big BOOM.

Enhancing the weak force doesn't really protect us. The effect keeps the nuke it's pointed at from detonating, but it leaves the other 2 or 5 or 11 or 17 or whatever missiles free to go boom.

 

[Lycanorukke]

I'm not sure how that translates into something that "mak(es) atomic nuclei shed neutrons at low energy levels". That sounds more like the weak nuclear force, which holds nuclei together, but I'm no expert.

Not quite. Not an expert either, but I asked one may years ago .

The main thing the strong force does is hold the quarks together, _but_ it also has a 'residual component' (the residual strong force) which holds the nucleus together.

If you weaken the residual force hadrons could start to escape, but if you weaken it too much the nucleus will disintergrate, effectively undergoing fission. And if you weaken it even further thing could get weird as the quarks disassociate (maybe this is how a disintegrator works?).

The weak force doesn't have any binding state (like gravity, SNF and electromagnetic) so it can't hold anything together - but it allows quarks to change flavour. So when a neutron (2 down, 1 up quarks) decays (beta decay) into a proton, electron & neutrino - the weak force is changing one of the 'down' quarks into an 'up' quark and the neutron becomes a proton (2up, 1 down).

Fiddling with the weak force could have interesting effects as atoms transmute into other atoms randomly as proton/neutron numbers go wild.

 

[mike wightman]

Dampers supress or enhance the strong nuclear force...

A common term, dampers units actually may be used to increase or
decrease the stability of atomic nuclei. Projecting from two separate stations, the intersection
of the two transmitted broadcasts produces a series of nodes and anti-nodes. In the area of the
nodes, the strong nuclear force is enhanced, making the nucleus more stable. In the area of the
anti-nodes, the strong nuclear force is depressed, making the nucleus much less stable. Antinodes
are focused on incoming nuclear warheads, causing them to shed neutrons at low energy
levels, rendering the warhead inoperable.

Damper technology is one of the two major postulated scientific breakthroughs.
It assumes that a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force will allow us to
manipulate it. Nuclear damper units create an interference field in the force. Point
defense dampers focus a negative node on incoming nuclear warheads, lowering the
potential barriers around the nucleus; the warhead will shed neutrons at very low
energies and be rendered harmless after a very short exposure. Damper boxes, on
the other hand, focus a positive node on their contents, raising the potential barrier
and preventing nuclear decay.

 

[Carlobrand]

Okay, so as the link said: the strong nuclear force is the force "responsible for binding together the fundamental particles of matter to form larger particles." This is the glue that makes quarks into protons and neutrons, the strongest of the forces.

The strong nuclear force makes quarks stick together.

The Weak nuclear force (weak interaction?) is responsible for decay of the atomic nucleus, changing a proton into a neutron and vice versa.

https://www.livescience.com/49254-weak-force.html

And the strong force has a residual component that binds nuclei together, which if you suppress can make the nucleus shed a neutron.

Damn, but I wish I had the money to go back to school. This is fascinating stuff.

Anyway, Pu-239 throws a neutron, becomes Pu-238 which is not very explosive at all but likes to shed heat, generating 0.568 watts per gram of heat and glowing under the heat it generates - which again is likely to cause the explosives to go boom, though probably not with their usual force.

 

[mike wightman]

I am tempted to handwave that it is manipulation of the weak force that makes meson screens a thing. Weak force can manipulate the properties of quarks...

In the OTU manipulation of gravity and the strong force are known things, the meson gun and the meson screen are the most poorly explained - perhaps it is manipulation of quark flavour that makes meson guns and meson screens a thing.