The
Mark 36 was a heavy high-yield US nuclear bomb designed in the 1950s. It was a thermonuclear bomb, using a multi-stage
fusion secondaryThe Teller–Ulam design is a nuclear weapon design that is used in multi-megaton-range thermonuclear weapons, and is more colloquially referred to as "the secret of the hydrogen bomb." It is named after two of its chief contributors, Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller and Polish-born...
system to generate yields up to about 10 megatons.
The Mark 36 was a more advanced version of the earlier
Mark 21 nuclear bombThe Mark 21 nuclear bomb was a nuclear gravity bomb first produced in 1955, based on the results of Operation Castle. While most of the shots of the Castle series were intended to test weapons intended for immediate stockpile, or which were already available for use as part of the Emergency...
, which itself was a weaponized version of the "Shrimp" design, the first "dry" (lithium deuteride) fuel thermonuclear bomb the US tested, in the
Castle BravoCastle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, by the United States, as the first test of Operation Castle...
thermonuclear test in 1954.
The Mark 21 bomb was developed and deployed immediately after Castle Bravo, in 1955.
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The
Mark 36 was a heavy high-yield US nuclear bomb designed in the 1950s. It was a thermonuclear bomb, using a multi-stage
fusion secondaryThe Teller–Ulam design is a nuclear weapon design that is used in multi-megaton-range thermonuclear weapons, and is more colloquially referred to as "the secret of the hydrogen bomb." It is named after two of its chief contributors, Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller and Polish-born...
system to generate yields up to about 10 megatons.
History
The Mark 36 was a more advanced version of the earlier
Mark 21 nuclear bombThe Mark 21 nuclear bomb was a nuclear gravity bomb first produced in 1955, based on the results of Operation Castle. While most of the shots of the Castle series were intended to test weapons intended for immediate stockpile, or which were already available for use as part of the Emergency...
, which itself was a weaponized version of the "Shrimp" design, the first "dry" (lithium deuteride) fuel thermonuclear bomb the US tested, in the
Castle BravoCastle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, by the United States, as the first test of Operation Castle...
thermonuclear test in 1954.
The Mark 21 bomb was developed and deployed immediately after Castle Bravo, in 1955. The Mark 21 design continued to be improved and the Mark 36 device started production in April 1956. In 1957, all older Mark 21 bombs were converted to Mark 36 Y1 Mod 1 bombs. A total of 920 Mark 36 bombs were produced as new build or converted from the 275 Mark 21 bombs produced earlier.
All Mark 36 nuclear bombs were retired between August 1961 and January 1962, replaced by the higher yield
B41 nuclear bombThe B41 was a thermonuclear weapon deployed by the United States Strategic Air Command in the early 1960s. It was the most powerful nuclear warhead ever developed by the United States with a theoretical maximum yield of 25 megatons.- Development :...
Specifications
The Mark 36 bomb was 56.2 to 59 inches in diameter, depending on version, and 150 inches long. It weighed 17,500 or 17,700 pounds depending on version.
There were 2 major variants, a "clean" and "dirty" variant. The clean variant used an inert fusion stage tamper-pusher assembly (see Teller-Ulam design#Tamper-pusher ablation ) such as lead or tungsten. The "dirty" variant used a
Depleted UraniumDepleted uranium is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 . Natural uranium is about 99.27 percent U-238, 0.72 percent U-235, and 0.0055 percent U-234. U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass...
or U-238 tamper-pusher which would undergo fission during the second stage fusion burn, doubling the weapon yield. The 9-10 megaton yield listed is for the "dirty" version - the "clean" version would have been roughly half that.
See also
- List of nuclear weapons
- Teller-Ulam design
The Teller–Ulam design is a nuclear weapon design that is used in multi-megaton-range thermonuclear weapons, and is more colloquially referred to as "the secret of the hydrogen bomb." It is named after two of its chief contributors, Hungarian-born physicist Edward Teller and Polish-born...
- Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the code name given to the first U.S. test of a dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb device, detonated on March 1, 1954, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, by the United States, as the first test of Operation Castle...
- Mark 21 nuclear bomb
The Mark 21 nuclear bomb was a nuclear gravity bomb first produced in 1955, based on the results of Operation Castle. While most of the shots of the Castle series were intended to test weapons intended for immediate stockpile, or which were already available for use as part of the Emergency...
- B41 nuclear bomb
The B41 was a thermonuclear weapon deployed by the United States Strategic Air Command in the early 1960s. It was the most powerful nuclear warhead ever developed by the United States with a theoretical maximum yield of 25 megatons.- Development :...