Fundamentals of Physics Extended (10th Edition)

Published by Wiley
ISBN 10: 1-11823-072-8
ISBN 13: 978-1-11823-072-5

Chapter 43 - Energy from the Nucleus - Problems - Page 1330: 5

Answer

The total mass of the plutonium in the warhead was $1.3 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{kg}$

Work Step by Step

Each warhead would have yielded 2.0 Megaton of TNT. 1 TNT = 2.6 x $10^{28}$ MeV energy 2 Megaton of TNT releases energy of 2 * 2.6 x $10^{28}$ MeV = 5.2 x $10^{28}$ MeV One fission event releases 200MeV of energy. To count how many fission events happened, we can simply perform the calculation as below, $N=\frac{5.2 \times 10^{23} \mathrm{MeV}}{200 \mathrm{MeV}}=2.6 \times 10^{26}$ But, this number only denotes only 8% of the entire Pu present in the warhead that undergoes fission and therefore, the amount of Plutonium present in the warhead could be given by; $N_{0}=\frac{N}{0.080}=\frac{2.6 \times 10^{26}}{0.080}=3.25 \times 10^{27}=5.4 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{mol}$ For Plutonium, the weight per mole is; M = 0.239 kg/mol As we know the Molecular weight and the number of moles of Plutonium in the warhead, we can calculate the mass of the warhead by simple calculation; $m=\left(5.4 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{mol}\right)(0.239 \mathrm{kg} / \mathrm{mol})=1.3 \times 10^{3} \mathrm{kg}$
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