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Post by mavericksawyer on Sept 30, 2016 8:07:02 GMT
Given the current spate of nuke designs over in the Post your designs here! thread, I'd start up a showcase for nukes in particular. My first entry:  I've made some smaller ones, with the objective being smaller, more precise nukes (yes, you read that right). I'll post pics of them downthread tomorrow evening. |
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Post by blothorn on Sept 30, 2016 10:17:46 GMT
My bid for "lightest 10kt nuke":  And for when you need a nuke you can use to cheat at bowling:  (Although I think that at this point making smaller nukes is a bit silly; the detonator and armor begin to outweigh the warhead.) |
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Post by Wesreidau on Sept 30, 2016 13:13:13 GMT
No, keep making them smaller and then tell me how to stuff them into my coilguns.
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Post by quarkster on Sept 30, 2016 13:35:58 GMT
How is Pu238 being used as a fissile material?
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tuna
New Member
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Post by tuna on Sept 30, 2016 13:42:41 GMT
I took some influences from (read: shamelessly lifted most of the design, it was better than mine) your 10kt nukes, but built this instead:  Because it uses the much cheaper Pu-239, the nuke comes in at only 347c. I plan to spam them, so it matters. |
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Post by jonatanhedborg on Sept 30, 2016 14:14:44 GMT
Wouldn't you need some pretty impressive strength materials to contain 5.36 kg of deuterium tritium inside a 4 cm radius sphere? I might have misunderstood something with how the nukes are suppose to work or have my ideal gas laws wrong, but that should be in the order of ~20 GPa of pressure (at room temperature).
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Post by Durandal on Sept 30, 2016 15:05:11 GMT
My bid for "lightest 10kt nuke": And for when you need a nuke you can use to cheat at bowling: (Although I think that at this point making smaller nukes is a bit silly; the detonator and armor begin to outweigh the warhead.) That "bowling ball"... that's more like a nuclear carrot. |
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Post by RA2lover on Oct 1, 2016 17:02:39 GMT
I was trying to make a 105mm cannon-launched missile before. Do note i'm still on 1.0.0(pirated the game  - still intending to buy it once it goes on sale though) - so its performance figures should change somewhat if nuke formulas were indeed changed since the initial release:  The idea was basically putting the highest yield nuke that could fit in a 10cm diameter cylinder. It really limits the available options though - a 20cm diameter nuke(made because i've confused radius as diameter here) can get to 300kt easily. A few design considerations: - Calcium is probably one of the strongest desensitizers out there, followed by Potassium(which you need less of to make your slow explosive not ignite) - At this scale, the job of your neutron reflector isn't reflecting neutrons, but containing the explosive for as long as possible. In this case, as much density as possible helps. - You need as little explosive as possible to maximize yield, though i've had issues at this as I can't find a slow explosive material that covers the gap between silicon nanothermite(pretty slow by itself, meaning it's easy to build a nuke with it, though it has a low energy density that limits your yield later on if you decide to use it) and nitroglycerin. - Most of this design's efficiency comes from the fission stage, which needs fusion boosting to work properly. Adding more fissiles needs more explosives to compress them, though, and i can't afford it at this size. Does anyone have a slow explosive composition that can bridge the gap between nitroglycerin and silicon nanothermite? |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 1, 2016 19:28:30 GMT
Nice pointer on the Silicon Nanothermite/Calcium combination. I had given up on the nanothermites because I could not find a delay composition that worked with them. Taking inspiration from that design, I can shave 0.89kg from my 10kt-class nuke, which translates to an extra 0.21km/s:  (A note on Pu-238---I am launching these in front of 18.2kt of nickel iron molybdenum, which makes optimizing the cost of the nuke a false economy. On the other hand, I have a 5.94km/s, 103kt missile that costs 5.63kc; nuke coilguns are not very cost-effective (but much lighter, and tend to hit their target better). |
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aiyel
Junior Member
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Post by aiyel on Oct 2, 2016 0:30:27 GMT
Nice pointer on the Silicon Nanothermite/Calcium combination. I had given up on the nanothermites because I could not find a delay composition that worked with them. Taking inspiration from that design, I can shave 0.89kg from my 10kt-class nuke, which translates to an extra 0.21km/s: (A note on Pu-238---I am launching these in front of 18.2kt of nickel iron molybdenum, which makes optimizing the cost of the nuke a false economy. On the other hand, I have a 5.94km/s, 103kt missile that costs 5.63kc; nuke coilguns are not very cost-effective (but much lighter, and tend to hit their target better). You might be better off firing it out of a conventional cannon if it's that small. |
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Post by blothorn on Oct 2, 2016 1:44:26 GMT
You might be better off firing it out of a conventional cannon if it's that small. At 8.5km/s?  |
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Post by RA2lover on Oct 2, 2016 2:12:21 GMT
That's a broken cannon. Firing a 6.62kg slug at 8.54km/s leads to a total projectile kinetic energy of 241.4 MJ (or a continuous energy throughput of 581.7 MW), meaning this gun is has an energy efficiency of about 19400%.
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aiyel
Junior Member
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Post by aiyel on Oct 2, 2016 2:36:31 GMT
Granted.
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Post by blothorn on Oct 2, 2016 2:36:42 GMT
Bother. It is annoyingly difficult to make coilguns that obey physics...
(And it is worse than that, since it is also firing a 9kg payload.)
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aiyel
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by aiyel on Oct 2, 2016 5:51:15 GMT
Ok wow that nuke coil gun is an "I win" button when paired with a minimum power micro laser set to max range. Is also a "test the thermal limits of your processor" after I tweaked for higher fire rate.
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- still intending to buy it once it goes on sale though) - so its performance figures should change somewhat if nuke formulas were indeed changed since the initial release: