Nuclear weapon design
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Nuclear weapons design means the physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a nuclear weapon to detonate. There are three existing basic design types:
The first nuclear explosive devices provided the basic building blocks of future weapons. Pictured is the Gadget device being prepared for the Trinity nuclear test.
Macroscopic shell of neptunium-237
Microscopic quantity of americium
Bassoon, the prototype for a 9.3-megaton clean bomb or a 25-megaton dirty bomb. Dirty version shown here, before its 1956 test. The two attachments on the left are light pipes; see below for elaboration.
Fat Man
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"Fat Man" was the design of the nuclear weapon the United States used for seven of the first eight nuclear weapons ever detonated in history. It is also the most powerful design to ever be used in war
Nuclear weapon design
…was undoubtedly a combination of the lower yield and grave safety issues associated with the gun-type design. For both the Trinity device and the Fat Man (Nagasaki) bomb, nearly identical plutonium fission through implosion designs were used. The Fat Man device specifically used 6.2 kg (14 lb), about 350…
Replica of the original Fat Man bomb
Replica mockup of a Fat Man displayed in the National Museum of the United States Air Force, beside the Bockscar B-29 that dropped the original device – black liquid asphalt sealant was sprayed over the original bomb casing's seams, simulated on the mockup.
A pumpkin bomb (Fat Man test unit) being raised from the pit into the bomb bay of a B-29 for bombing practice during the weeks before the attack on Nagasaki
Fat Man's "physics package" nuclear device about to be encased