Ivy King

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Ivy King

Ivy King was the largest pure fission

Nuclear fission

In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the atomic nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts, often producing free neutrons and lighter atomic nucleus, which may eventually produce photons ....
nuclear bomb

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion....
ever tested by the United States. The bomb was tested during the Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States . As the List of Vice Presidents of the United States Vice President of the United States, he succeeded Franklin D....
administration as part of Operation Ivy

Operation Ivy

Operation Ivy was the eighth series of American Nuclear testing, coming after Operation Tumbler-Snapper and before Operation Upshot-Knothole. The purpose of the tests was to help upgrade the U.S....
. This series of tests involved the development of very powerful nuclear weapons in response to the nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
.

The production of Ivy King was hurried so it would be ready if its sister project, Ivy Mike

Ivy Mike

Ivy Mike was the codename given to the first US test of a nuclear fusion device where a major part of the explosive yield came from fusion. It was detonated on November 1, 1952 by the United States at on Enewetak, an atoll in the Pacific Ocean, as part of Operation Ivy....
, failed in its attempt to achieve a thermonuclear reaction

Nuclear fusion

In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus....
.

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Encyclopedia

Ivy King was the largest pure fission

Nuclear fission

Nuclear weapon

Harry S. Truman

Operation Ivy

Soviet Union

Ivy Mike

Nuclear fusion

In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple like-charged atomic nuclei join together to form a heavier nucleus....
. The Ivy King test actually took place two weeks after Mike. Unlike the Mike bomb, the Ivy King device could theoretically have been added to United States' nuclear arsenal because it was designed to be air-deliverable.

On November 16, 1952 at 11:30 local time (23:30 GMT) a B-36H bomber

Convair B-36

The Convair B-36 was a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated solely by the United States Air Force . The B-36 was the largest mass-produced piston engined aircraft ever made and had the largest wingspan in a combat aircraft ever built , although there have been larger military transports....
dropped the bomb over a point 2,000 feet (610 m) north of Runit Island in the Enewetak

Enewetak

File:Enewetak or Eniwetok atoll.jpgEnewetak is an atoll in the Marshall Islands of the central Pacific Ocean. Its land consists of about 40 small islets totaling less than 6 km?, surrounding a lagoon, 80 km in circumference....
atoll, resulting in a 500 kiloton explosion at 1,480 feet (450 m).

The Ivy King bomb, designated as a Mk-18 bomb

Mark 18 nuclear bomb

The Mark 18 nuclear bomb, also known as the SOB or Super Oralloy Bomb, was an American nuclear bomb design which was the highest yield fission bomb produced by the US....
and named the "Super Oralloy Bomb", was a modified version of the Mk-6D bomb

Mark 6 nuclear bomb

The Mark 6 nuclear bomb was an American nuclear bomb based on the earlier Mark 4 nuclear bomb and its predecessor, the Fat Man design.The Mark 6 was produced from 1951-1955 and saw service until 1962....
. Instead of using an implosion system

Nuclear weapon design

Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a Nuclear weapons to detonate. There are three basic design types....
similar to the Mk-6D, it used a 92 point implosion system initially developed for the Mk-13. Its uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-gray metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the chemical symbol U and atomic number 92....
-plutonium

Plutonium

Plutonium is a rare transuranic radioactive chemical element. It is an actinide metal of silvery-white appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when plutonium oxide....
core was replaced by 60kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU)

Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation....
fashioned into a thin-walled sphere equivalent to approximately four critical masses. The thin-walled sphere was a commonly used design which ensured that the fissile material remained sub-critical until imploded. The HEU sphere was then enclosed in a natural uranium tamper. To physically prevent the HEU sphere collapsing into a critical condition if the surrounding explosives were detonated, or if the sphere was crushed following an aircraft accident, the hollow centre was filled with a chain made from aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white and ductile member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al; its atomic number is 13....
and boron

Boron

Boron is a chemical element with atomic number 5 and the chemical symbol B. Boron is a trivalent metalloid element which occurs abundantly in the evaporite ores borax and ulexite....
which was pulled out to arm the bomb. The boron coated chain also absorbed the neutron

Neutron

The neutron is a subatomic particle with no net electric charge and a mass slightly larger than that of a proton.Neutrons are usually found in atomic nucleus....
s needed to drive the nuclear reaction.

The primary designer of the Super Oralloy Bomb, physicist Ted Taylor

Ted Taylor

Theodore Brewster Taylor , was a prominent Mexico-born United States theoretical physics and nuclear weapons nuclear weapon design....
, later became a vocal proponent of nuclear disarmament.

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