Σldritch
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Is nuclear weapon miniaturisation driving institutional EM research?
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greenlight
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I believe there is a still large portion of EM research being dedicated to chemical explosives.
One major area is greener explosives for example a replacement for lead azide due to contamination and toxicity. Moving away from heavy metal salts
seems to be the direction everything is going.
Another area of continued importance and a never ending hunt is always higher performance secondaries with an emphasis on heat of explosion,
detonation velocity, detonation pressure and strained molecular structures.
Lower sensitivity of primaries is another factor that is continuously under development.
I think the nuclear weapons side is just a continuous challenge of building more cores and completed weapons systems than the next country over in a
bid to "keep up" with everyone else. I also believe that any nuclear weapon research is highly classified compared to standard chemical energetics so
it is hard to know really.
I don't know a great deal about nuclear weapons research but merely wanted to highlight other areas of EM that are being researched.
Could you elaborate on miniaturisation? Do you mean smaller,
stealthier, more efficient warheads for example with better guidance and dispersal systems?
[Edited on 18-12-2024 by greenlight]
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dettoo456
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CL-20 was/is only being produced because it’s the “world’s most powerful non-nuclear explosive material” (produced on a large scale). That
being said, it obviously pales in comparison to the energy density of Pu or U, and most people in the vicinity of a CL-20 bomb vs an RDX bomb
wouldn’t know the difference between the properties of the two. I’d wager most politicians and lobbyists pushing for war and EM research still
think modern bombs create huge fireballs, and just throw money into labs to generate as many superlative explosives as possible, ignoring costs,
byproducts/waste, and realistic procurement quantities.
The green EM side of things seems to have nothing to do with nuclear weapons or even war lobbying IMO. Bombs are not clean, nor are plastic missiles
and drones being littered all over countries, so companies bragging about ‘enviromentally-friendly’ alternatives to [insert literally any EM
synthesized in the 60s] are asinine.
I think that replacing heavy metals and generally toxic EMs is an overall good, but the green aspect of explosives R&D seems to me to just be
aligned with the current greenwashing in most sciences, and R&D related to tuning explosive performances up is pointless IMO. There are very few,
if any, currently known EMs with very high performances that can be produced as cheap as RDX or HMX. And most of the new high performance explosives
(LLM-105, CL-20, various furazans, TKX-50), even with precursors becoming more available, will never be cost-effective enough compared to standards
like PETN, at least if the MIC finally gets their insane budget requests turned down.
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Texium
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Thread Moved
18-12-2024 at 16:01 |
greenlight
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Yes, the properties between CL-20 and RDX would only be apparent to someone working in the field comparing the two in shaped charges, brisance or
other specialty tests.
I believe you are correct about politicians and lobbyists having no idea about how energetics actually work and probably do have the standard movie
explosion idea in their heads. They would just think more money for production so more destructive power cause bigger .
The greener future view seems to be taking over every facet of science in the last decade. The search for lower toxicity energetics I believe has
less to to do with other countries or the global environment, but more due to the fact that their own testing areas and military ranges become
contaminated after years of use. For example, the lead contamination from azide mentioned before.
It is quite interesting how the earliest discovered and easiest to synthesis energetics (PETN, RDX, HMX, TNT, LA) simply can't be beaten and have
become staple pieces globally.
I feel as if the major discoveries have been made, but there are undiscovered energetics out there that are superior in performance with
cost-effective precursors and synthesis methods, and if we stop searching, then the whole field just stagnates and we will never know.
That's just personal opinion though, I think discovering another extremely significant energetic could take decades.
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clearly_not_atara
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No, I think it's mostly about making conventional missiles smaller, faster and more maneuverable. The arms race right now is in missile defense and
anti-aircraft technology.
For smaller nuclear weapons, the effect of a stronger explosive pales in comparison to a better way to make 236Np or 247Cm, either of which would
allow the effective construction of nuclear weapons that could fit in a standard checked bag on a commercial airliner. I'm on a list anyway so I might
as well say that 
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