Chapter 36: Helium-3 Nuclear Bomb
Li Wuchang took a breath and eased his mind, the excitement and tension in his mind began to disappear little by little, replaced by a calm, at this moment, what girlfriends, soldiers, professors, nuclear bombs and the like all disappeared in his mind, and he only had work in his eyes.
It's just a slightly more complicated job, just do it as you normally would, get it done, and you're good to go.
The helium-3 bomb is more complex than the ordinary hydrogen bomb, it uses a three-layer ring structure, and the innermost layer is the atomic bomb, which is the one delivered by the two soldiers; In the middle are deuterium and tritium, which are the main materials of the hydrogen bomb; The outermost layer is helium-3.
In Professor Ding Yidong's design, the innermost atomic bomb was detonated first, generating a high temperature of more than 50 million degrees Celsius, igniting the outer layer of hydrogen bombs. Immediately afterwards, the 100 million degree of heat generated by the detonation of the hydrogen bomb ignited the outermost helium-3 layer.
Compared with the hydrogen bomb, the helium-3 nuclear bomb actually has only the outermost helium-3 layer, but don't underestimate the extra layer, its technical difficulty has increased several times.
Why? First, helium-3 is normally gaseous, and although it can be compressed into a liquid state under high pressure, it must be equipped with a large refrigeration device to be stored for a long time, which is also too troublesome, and a small nuclear bomb must not be equipped with this kind of thing.
Moreover, helium is a noble gas and basically does not react chemically with any object, so how can it be converted into a solid state?
Professor Ding Yidong has been studying for ten years and finally solved this problem, that is, the physical adsorption method. He invented an active nanocarbon that, at low temperatures, can adsorb large amounts of helium-3 gas. When it returns to room temperature, the adsorbed gas will not be released.
Well, this issue is solved. Although it was clear in one sentence, it took ten years of hard work.
Second, there is another engineering difficulty, because the explosive force of the atomic bomb is so strong that it can destroy the entire device in an instant, which requires that the hydrogen bomb ignite helium-3 for a very, very short time.
To put it simply, the atomic bomb ignites the hydrogen bomb, and the hydrogen bomb ignites helium-3, which is very well designed, but it is extremely difficult to practice, and often before the hydrogen bomb ignites helium-3, the entire helium-3 layer is blown away by the atomic bomb.
Of course, it is also possible that only part of helium-3 is ignited, but this result is still a failure for everyone.
In order to solve this problem, Professor Ding Yidong made a detailed calculation, the inside of the nuclear bomb is simply a three-ring structure, in fact, it is very complex, the purpose is to make the helium-3 layer can be ignited as quickly as possible. In addition, the thickness of the deuterium-tritium layer must be controlled within a suitable range, so that the deuterium-tritium layer and the helium-3 layer should be in contact within the first time of explosion.
They designed a sheet of iron paper only 20 nanometers thick to isolate the deuterium-tritium layer from the helium-3 layer, as long as the iron sheet paper is punctured by the force after the atomic bomb explosion, helium-3 can quickly enter the deuterium-tritium layer and ignite. Of course, there must be an anti-vibration design, and the iron sheet paper will not break due to ordinary vibrations.
But in this way, the engineering difficulty is very great, first, the quality of the deuterium-tritium layer should be strictly controlled, preferably to reach the microgram level, second, in the production process of the helium-3 layer pressure should be slightly greater than the deuterium-tritium layer, but not too large, otherwise once the iron sheet paper is broken, everything will be mixed together, resulting in the failure of the experiment.
Therefore, Professor Ding Yidong's heart is very nervous, there is only one chance, and if he fails, there will be no more. He wanted to go up to help, but he also knew that he would definitely be a disadvantage if he went up, so he could only wait behind him.
The same goes for the others, they have done a lot of work, but the last step is only to watch. The same machine, different people to do, the final result must be different, just like the same factory, different shifts of workers to make products, the yield is different, there must be good and bad.
Hearing that there is a precedence, and there is a specialization in the art industry, they can only believe in Li Wu unconditionally.
Li Wu didn't have so many thoughts, he was now in a situation of no joy and carefree, just focusing on what was in front of him. His hands began to operate, and the work was like a computer program, without the slightest error, and it was done smoothly.
Most of the molds are already produced in the factory, and the last thing he has to do is put them together.
He manipulated the electronic arm to first remove the atomic bomb from the black box and carefully place it in a fixed position. Of course, the shell of this atomic bomb has long been stripped away, leaving only a layer of lead casing. The half-life of enriched uranium is very long, the radiation hazard is not very large, and a layer of lead shell can basically block it, so everyone does not shy away from anything.
One of the two soldiers was Zhao Yao in the special forces, this black fat man was not able to attend the party, but was dispatched to carry out this mission, and he must have felt a little unhappy in his heart. But now, he didn't dare to make a sound, he was very nervous, his grab really had bullets, in case these scientists did something, it must be a shot to greet the past.
What he advocates in the army is strength and blood, and he likes the latest weapons and equipment very much. But he still had a strange sense of tension when he saw nuclear weapons, the most ferocious weapons of human history.
"The atomic bomb has finally been seen, and the hydrogen bomb and the more powerful helium-3 nuclear weapon are also to be seen." Zhao Yao suddenly felt that this trip was worth it.
As the procedures progressed, the robotic arm maneuvered again to remove some solid compounds glowing with blue light, which are lithium deuteride and lithium tritide, the main materials of the hydrogen bomb. At present, the hydrogen bombs of science and technology all use solid compounds, and liquid hydrogen is no longer used.
In history, in 1952, the Americans successfully tested the first hydrogen bomb, using liquid deuterium and tritium as thermonuclear materials, which made the hydrogen bomb carry a big burden. Because to keep deuterium and tritium in a liquid state, a complex freezing system had to be carried with them, so that the first hydrogen bomb reached 65 tons, which could only be loaded with a train wagon.
In this way, the actual combat significance is lost, and people call this kind of hydrogen bomb with liquid deuterium and tritium as thermonuclear fuel a wet hydrogen bomb.
Later, scientists discovered that lithium-6, an isotope of the lithium element, is an excellent thermonuclear material. If lithium deute-6 and lithium tritide-6 are used as hydrogen bomb materials, not only can thermonuclear reactions be realized, but also the heavy refrigeration system can be shaken off, the volume of hydrogen bombs can be greatly reduced, and miniaturization can be realized.
People call a hydrogen bomb containing a mixture of lithium deuteride and lithium tritide a dry hydrogen bomb.
Now, what Li Wu wants to make is a dry hydrogen bomb. The steps in this are very critical, according to the design requirements, the materials are quantitative, of course, the higher the accuracy, the better, the best is accurate to 0.1 micrograms, that is, 10 million grams.
Now the best electronic scales are barely reaching this level. If you want to achieve this accuracy, it is too difficult and too difficult, no matter how hard the average person works, he can only achieve the milligram level (1 gram = 1000 mg = 1000000 micrograms), no matter how much the hand trembles, it is also fluctuating up and down in tens of milligrams, but Li Wu is different.
His hand is so steady that it can be done with microgram accuracy, it's just a matter of time and patience. The robotic arm is constantly moving, using extremely thin needles to extract the last few micrograms, but at this time, there is no human flexibility left. Li Wu immediately went into battle by himself and began to extract it manually.
He was constantly trying to enter a mysterious state, a state that used to be the pinnacle of experience and luck, and sometimes the state came up and could be done in one fell swoop.
This could be a practice makes perfect, or it could be a personal talent, but it's hard to explain. Sometimes when I go to the vegetable market to buy vegetables, the uncle who sells pork can accurately cut out the quality of a piece of meat without relying on electronic scales, and the accuracy is accurate to the gram. Li Wu thinks that he may also have this kind of talent, but he is obviously countless times stronger than the meat seller, and he can be accurate to micrograms.