Air Activation Following an Atmospheric Explosion

Lowrey, Justin D. ; McIntyre, Justin I. ; Prichard, Andrew W. ; Gesh, Christopher J.

关键词: Thermal Radiation;    Fission Products;    Nuclear Explosions;    unfissioned neutrons;    atmospheric nuclear explosion;    radioactive signature;    high neutron flux;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1122331
RP-ID  :  PNNL-23023
PID  :  OSTI ID: 1122331
Others  :  Other: NN2003000

美国|英语

来源: SciTech Connect

【 摘 要 】

In addition to thermal radiation and fission products, nuclear explosions result in a very high flux of unfissioned neutrons. Within an atmospheric nuclear explosion, these neutrons can activate the various elemental components of natural air, potentially adding to the radioactive signature of the event as a whole. The goal of this work is to make an order-of-magnitude estimate of the total amount of air activation products that can result from an atmospheric nuclear explosion.