The current no of warheads is an estimate based on the heat emission of the Pu making reactors.
China Ballistic Missiles and Nuclear Arms Thread
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escobar
Brigadier
They used sat imagery so this is the best we can have from open source. And they recognize that some elements are still missing
You say China never publish their arsenal but that does not prevent you to toss "some number"...
It is just a matter of assuming if they have missiles, they come with warheads.
Otherwise not much point in manufacturing those. Who wants to have missiles without warheads?
Also, counting only output from heat emission of Pu making reactors seems kind of simplistic to me. China imported the PUREX process from France. It is usually used to make MOX fuel from spent fuel rods of civilian reactors, but IIRC it can also be used to separate the plutonium with additional steps.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
Nope most of Pu can be derived enriched Uranium and most of them are built underground just like the Iranian did Anyway other method is graphite moderator reactor that does not need water!
Wow, nice Gish gallop.
One sentence, 33 word, 4 statement , each of them very weak : D .
Sadly ,the falsification takes more, but that is the point of the Gish gallop.
1. Pu warhead has 20-100% higher mass than the U235, means the cost of delivery vehicles will increase by this much - and the delivery of weapons is the 95% of cost
2. hiding the strike capability makes sense if it is too weak , and using U235 instead of pu239 will makes it weak, expensive
3. graphite is a moderator, the cooling can be anything, in Chernobyl it was water, if the reactor is military then rejection of heat to atmosphere is an option
4. the satellites detect the heat, not the type of cooling, so air or water is irrelevant.
It is the problem with Gish gallop (or advantage) is the resource intensity to falsify.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
You just has no clue about nuclear reactor but has big MOUTH!
The best way to generate Pu is using Heavy water based moderator Reactor like (CANDU)and it does need water cooling which in turn need Cooling tower. There is no such thing as detecting heat how you do that professor? PLease explain it to me how you measure heat from satellite
Chinese early nuclear program center on north west where there is lack ofwater that is why they use Colling tower. But in the south there are plenty of water you don't need cooling tower
The way the figure out the capacity of the reactor by measuring the cooling tower diameter and knowing that you can guess the power of the reactor Knowing the power of the reactor you can guess the plutonium production.
But during the WWII they don't use water based moderator(heavy water) instead they use graphite based moderator reactor just like Chernobyl.
Nowadays the best way to get plutonium is by enriching using gas diffused centifuge and it is compact you can hide in the cave just like the Iranian does it.
On 14 April 2006, The (ISIS) published a series of analyzed satellite images of Iran's nuclear facilities at Natanz and Esfahan. Featured in these images is a new tunnel entrance near the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Esfahan and continued construction at the Natanz uranium enrichment site. In addition, a series of images dating back to 2002 shows the underground enrichment buildings and its subsequent covering by soil, concrete, and other materials. Both facilities were already subject to IAEA inspections and safeguards.
According to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Islamic Republic can only accumulate enriched uranium with first-generation IR-1 machines, which are the only ones it is permitted to operate at the underground plant. But the IAEA report said that Tehran had been feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas feedstock into advanced IR-2m machines.
A previous IAEA report said that Iran had installed the IR-2m machines underground. And in its latest report, dated Tuesday, the IAEA states: “On 14 November 2020, the Agency verified that Iran began feeding UF6 into the recently installed cascade of 174 IR-2m centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) in Natanz.”
Her if you want to learn about nuclear processing
Natural uranium contains only 0.7% uranium-235, with the remainder mostly made up of uranium-238. The isotopes differ only in the number of neutrons found in their atoms. Uranium-235 atoms have 92 protons and 143 neutrons, whereas uranium-238 atoms have 92 protons and 146 neutrons.
To enrich uranium, yellowcake is first turned into a gas called uranium hexafluoride. This is pumped into centrifuges that spin so fast the ever-so-slightly heavier gas containing uranium-238 is forced to the outside, while the lighter gas containing uranium-235 stays in the middle.
In enrichment plants, thousands of centrifuges are connected in cascades. Each unit enriches the gas a little and then passes it on to the next centrifuge to enrich some more. The process produces two streams of gas: the enriched “product”, which is ultimately used to make fuel or bombs, and the “tails”, known as depleted uranium.
The uranium used in nuclear reactors is enriched to about 4% U-235. But for nuclear bombs it must be enriched to about 90%. Under the nuclear deal, is permitted to enrich uranium to 3.67% but now intends to exc
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: D
I didn't expected it, but frankly, get a high school Physics book, and read it.
So, first ,cooling and moderation.
Moderation required to decrease the amount of fissile material for a self sustaining chain reaction.
See the above diagram ? It doesn't talk about speed, but the eV in the case of neutrons means the average air molecules speed on room temperature at 10-3eV , reason of the world "thermal neutron". Neutrons born at 10+7 speed.
The vertical scale is the cross section, it is in relation with the chance of absorbing of a neutron by a virgin U235 atom and split it with additional neutron release.
As it is visible, the chance to capture (And make further fission aka chain reaction) is 10 magnitude higher at thermal neutron speed than at release speed.
Simplest (only) method is to decrease the speed of neutrons is to bounce them from other atoms.
During that process the atoms heat up, and the neutron slow down.
Best is the low atomic weight elements, H,D,T and carbon.
So, moderation means this.
Without moderation the reactor size, fissile mass and the blanket (U-238 to absorb the neutrons and become Pu-239) would be huge. And expensive.
-------------------------------------------------
2nd chapter of reactor design, heat.
| Kinetic energy of fission fragments | 169.1 |
| Kinetic energy of prompt neutrons | 4.8 |
So, the moderation get only 3% of the energy from the fission, the leftover heat up the fuel, in the form of the kinetic energy of the fragments.(simplistic view )
Means the graphite (RBMK) or heavy water(CANDU) receive only fraction of the energy, the best part is gathered by the fuel, and the cooling water of the fuel (CANDU and RBMK) or the air vented thought ( military Pu reactors).
----------------------------------
3. chapter, detection.
It is the open source intelligence analysis of the North Korean nuclear centre, to see if there is any Pu making activity.
This is how the open source analysis of the Chines Pu stock estimated.
They made lot of thermal picture about the Chinese nuclear sites over decades, and calculated/counted the time when they was on full power. compare the reactor heat emission with similar, known reactors gives the power , knowing the active days gives the amount of Pu239 that generated in that time period.
Very visible on the far IR satellite images . There you can see minor differences due to few kilowatt heating energy, a military reactor makes megawatts / gigawatts, as easy to hide like an elephant in a room.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
: D
I didn't expected it, but frankly, get a high school Physics book, and read it.
So, first ,cooling and moderation.
Moderation required to decrease the amount of fissile material for a self sustaining chain reaction.
See the above diagram ? It doesn't talk about speed, but the eV in the case of neutrons means the average air molecules speed on room temperature at 10-3eV , reason of the world "thermal neutron". Neutrons born at 10+7 speed.
The vertical scale is the cross section, it is in relation with the chance of absorbing of a neutron by a virgin U235 atom and split it with additional neutron release.
As it is visible, the chance to capture (And make further fission aka chain reaction) is 10 magnitude higher at thermal neutron speed than at release speed.
Simplest (only) method is to decrease the speed of neutrons is to bounce them from other atoms.
During that process the atoms heat up, and the neutron slow down.
Best is the low atomic weight elements, H,D,T and carbon.
So, moderation means this.
Without moderation the reactor size, fissile mass and the blanket (U-238 to absorb the neutrons and become Pu-239) would be huge. And expensive.
-------------------------------------------------
2nd chapter of reactor design, heat.
Kinetic energy of fission fragments 169.1 Kinetic energy of prompt neutrons 4.8
So, the moderation get only 3% of the energy from the fission, the leftover heat up the fuel, in the form of the kinetic energy of the fragments.(simplistic view )
Means the graphite (RBMK) or heavy water(CANDU) receive only fraction of the energy, the best part is gathered by the fuel, and the cooling water of the fuel (CANDU and RBMK) or the air vented thought ( military Pu reactors).
----------------------------------
3. chapter, detection.
It is the open source intelligence analysis of the North Korean nuclear centre, to see if there is any Pu making activity.
This is how the open source analysis of the Chines Pu stock estimated.
They made lot of thermal picture about the Chinese nuclear sites over decades, and calculated/counted the time when they was on full power. compare the reactor heat emission with similar, known reactors gives the power , knowing the active days gives the amount of Pu239 that generated in that time period.
Very visible on the far IR satellite images . There you can see minor differences due to few kilowatt heating energy, a military reactor makes megawatts / gigawatts, as easy to hide like an elephant in a room.
You keep blabering all the time. I can't make what are you trying to say. I know CANDU program for a long time. And you are just amateur reading paper without understanding it . Moderator function is to slow down the neutron so that it can hit the fissile material and start the chain reaction. There is 2 ways to create chain reaction YOu either enriched the uranium which is the American system or you could enriched the moderator Heavy water which CANDU choose.In CANDU system the neutron is hitting the bigger moderator atom It then slow it down giving it more probabity to hit the fissile material.The advantage s using slightly enriched uranium and 2 dimensional cooling reducing the complexity of Thermal hydraulic modelling and and onboard fuelling giving it high efficiency The disadvantages is more equipment and more complexity.
You can use graphite as moderator doing the same thing and create Chain reaction but much more dangerous as you cannot control the reaction with Heavy water you can control the reaction by inserting absorbing material like boron rod and stopped the reaction That is why I said heavy water reactor is the best bet to produce Plutonium But modern Weapon does not use plutonium they used enriched U235 easier to generate with difussion process and can hide underground There is no heat signature nothing.
There is no such thing ad heat estimate from space. I read the paper how they estimate the Chinese plutonium production and that is based on formula with starting point calculating the diameter of Cooling tower NO they never know how the North Korean plutonium production IT IS ESTIMATE AND THEY ARE WRONG MULTIPLE TIME. There is nosuch thing heat estimate from space you are smoking good stuff!
There is no technical barrier facing the Iranians. It is the early stages of enrichment that consume the most energy and the process becomes easier down the line. Industry data shows that more than half of the effort needed to enrich uranium to 90% is spent getting from 0.7% to 4%. When enrichment reaches 20%, the threshold for what counts as “highly enriched uranium”, and a level Iran has produced at Natanz in the past, about 90% of the work towards weapons-grade uranium is done.
The process gets easier because less material has to be moved around at higher levels of enrichment. A plant that enriches uranium to 4% with 5,000 centrifuges may need only 1,500 to reach 20% enrichment. From there, several hundred centrifuges are sufficient to reach the 90% needed for a nuclear bomb. Use 5,000 throughout and the rate of enrichment accelerates dramatically.
“It’s really hard at the start because you have very, very little of the uranium isotope you want. Natural uranium is almost all U-238 and initially getting that little bit of U-235 out is really difficult. But the more refined you make it the faster the refinement process happens,” said Anne Harrington, a lecturer in international relations at Cardiff University.
The more enriched the uranium, the less is needed for a weapon. At 20% U-235 enrichment, the critical mass is about 400kg, but at 90% enrichment the mass drops to about 28kg. The precise amounts depend on bomb design and that will be the bigger barrier should Iran want to become a nuclear
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My dad works at Nintendo too.
Hendrik_2000
Lieutenant General
No wonder you are a clown
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