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… by Jeff Smith, VT Science Editor

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Why do depleted uranium anti-tank rounds produce temperatures in excess of 4000 degrees centigrade if they are only made of depleted uranium U-238?

Because the depleted uranium is not pure U-238 it contains a certain amount of U-235, PU-239, PU-240/241 usually in less than 7% purity but still enough to undergo fission when impacted on a metal target at supersonic speeds producing temperatures in excess of 4,000 deg. centigrade.

Basically they are low grade battlefield micro nukes.

In 5th generation nuclear weapons we are talking about a new class of small nuclear weapons that use hydrogen and or deuterium charging of heave metals producing metal-hydrogen compounds called nuclear reactive composite materials for short or hydrides. They are metals that have very high surface to volume ratios for the absorption of hydrogen atoms such as deuterium.

In other words if uranium is charged with enough hydrogen it can trigger a nuclear process. This was discovered by Dr. Bridgman way back in 1947 with his experiments on very high compression of metals. It is called the Bridgman effect or S.B.E.R for Structural Breaking Energy Release. Physicist Ted Taylor called it the secret of the binding curve. So by charging uranium with deuterium beyond a certain level a fusion process is triggered.

This is basically how the second stage of a hydrogen bomb works but on a much smaller scale for mini nukes. Released Binding Energy produced in this manner takes on the form of gamma rays that can induce fission on the nuclei that make up the crystal lattice of the fissile metal.

Eliza Wiley IR Staff Photographer – Chip Clawson of the Montana Depleted Uranium Education Project stands near the billboard he raised money to have installed for the month, in an attempt to increase public awareness of the dangers depleted uranium has on American veterans.

In short it eliminates the problems of critical mass, fissile yields and in general the need for large amounts of fissile material itself. Even milligrams of uranium can be used to make weapons the size of bullets with this process.

In conclusion if a conventional 1st generation nuclear weapon releases about 20 kilotons of energy using as little as 8 KG of U-235 or about 1,000 KG of natural uranium. Then the new 5th generation fission process that are independent of critical mass will only require about 100 grams of U-235 to produce an explosive power of about two tons of TNT.