Royal Navy Trident missile problem

I say, bit of a sticky wicket with the old bang eggs.
In the James Bond Movie "Thunderball" the nuclear weapons on the Vulcan
bomber have "Nuclear Warhead - Handle Like Eggs"
written on them; this new MOD report indicates that might be a very wise
idea indeed:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2193638/Nuclear-missiles-could-blow-up-%5C'like-popcorn%5C'.html
Would make you feel confident living in a town with a RN submarine base
in it, wouldn't it?.
Assuming that none of them went off with a nuclear yield, this would
still generate a very large contamination problem.
When the Thor with the live nuclear warhead blew up on the pad at
Johnston Atoll, there was no nuclear detonation, but it blew plutonium
all over the place and took a lot of cleaning up.
If the solid fuel in the Tridents ignited due to the explosion, it would
generate a large hot cloud of plutonium/uranium-laced smoke that would
float downwind, causing severe contamination as it went.

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote in
dakotatelephone:


If the solid fuel in the Tridents ignited due to the explosion, it
would generate a large hot cloud of plutonium/uranium-laced smoke that
would float downwind, causing severe contamination as it went.

We had a Titan II, armed with a nuclear warhead, leak propellant
and blow up in its silo. The warhead landed some distance away,
intact with no release of radioactive materials.

Solid fuel doesn't detonate, though it does burn very hot, so for
your scenario to be valid the warhead would have to be confined
in the conflagration for some time in order to melt, or have its
chemical explosives ignite. For safety reasons, the chemical
explosives might react more slowly to a heat source than their
normal electric/optical? detonators.

There's been at least one case of a Soviet submarine having its
liquid-fueled missile ignite and explode in its "can" at sea,
but I'm not clear on the results other than the crew was able
to escape the sinking sub. (Yes, subs are supposed to sink, but
not permanently!)

Still, it's worrisome, if only because your neighborhood nuclear
sub base is a prime nuclear target; you'll be part of the collateral
damage. Makes me glad I don't live on Kitsap Peninsula (the location
of Bangor naval base--Bang-or, get it? No, really...)

Oh, just go look up Bangor, WA on Google Earth, and check out the
triangular sub dock/dry dock at:

122.7319 W,47.7429 N


--Damon

Damon Hill wrote:
Pat Flannery wrote in
dakotatelephone:



If the solid fuel in the Tridents ignited due to the explosion, it
would generate a large hot cloud of plutonium/uranium-laced smoke that
would float downwind, causing severe contamination as it went.


We had a Titan II, armed with a nuclear warhead, leak propellant
and blow up in its silo. The warhead landed some distance away,
intact with no release of radioactive materials.


In this case they are concerned about dropping the missile (or warhead
section) and the impact causing the explosive that compresses the
plutonium pit in the primary stage of the thermonuclear warhead to go
off, rather than the solid fuel in the missile itself. This explosion
leading to the other warheads on the missile to also detonate, or if it
was in the tube causing all the warheads on all the missiles to
detonate as the concussion wave or debris from the first detonating
warhead spreads through them.
What was fascinating (and a little scary) about the Titan explosion is
that they didn't find the nuclear warhead off of the missile until the
next morning after the night of the blast, despite the fact that it had
to be somewhere in the near vicinity, and that it was around the size of
a Gemini capsule...so you couldn't exactly overlook it very easily.

Solid fuel doesn't detonate, though it does burn very hot, so for
your scenario to be valid the warhead would have to be confined
in the conflagration for some time in order to melt, or have its
chemical explosives ignite. For safety reasons, the chemical
explosives might react more slowly to a heat source than their
normal electric/optical? detonators.


The stuff that's used to compress the plutonium pit (actually the pit is
a combo of plutonium and uranium in layers) has always had a
temperamental reputation, despite several decades of effort to make it
safer.
To get the fast shockwave propagation, small size, and low weight for a
missile warhead you want as powerful an explosive as possible, and those
unfortunately tend to be the most unstable.
I'm not sure how many detonation points modern warheads use on their
explosive lens... it might be as few as two, one detonating on either
end of a cylinder holding a pit of ovoid shape, and squeezing it into a
sphere as it's compressed, thereby meaning the lower radiation cross
section of the ovoid over a sphere of the same weight would allow more
plutonium by weight to be stored as a subcritical mass without reacting,
and far less compression needed via the explosive lens to get it to a
supercritical state as it forms into the ideal sphere shape.
They form the plutonium into rings when they ship it to where the
warhead pits proper are made to prevent it from going critical; this is
enough for one weapon pit:
http://content.answers.com/main/cont...onium_ring.jpg
Although they don't show it, I imagine those rings have a rod of
something like cadmium they are slipped over for transport.

There's been at least one case of a Soviet submarine having its
liquid-fueled missile ignite and explode in its "can" at sea,
but I'm not clear on the results other than the crew was able
to escape the sinking sub. (Yes, subs are supposed to sink, but
not permanently!)


They think the warhead of the missile involved in the K-219 explosion
went flying out of the tube and sank:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87...28/yankee.html
As to where the other warheads of its missiles are and what their
current condition is is anyone's guess; the wreck is under around 18,000
feet of seawater, so no one is going to have a very easy time getting to
it to check.

Pat

In sci.space.history Pat Flannery wrote:
They think the warhead of the missile involved in the K-219
explosion went flying out of the tube and sank:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87...28/yankee.html As to
where the other warheads of its missiles are and what their current
condition is is anyone's guess; the wreck is under around 18,000
feet of seawater, so no one is going to have a very easy time
getting to it to check.

I thought that was why the USN had/has Ballard?-)

rick jones
--
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it is one of "Ring Around the Rosy" or perhaps "Duck Duck Goose."
- Rick Jones
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

Damon Hill wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote in
hdakotatelephone:


If the solid fuel in the Tridents ignited due to the explosion, it
would generate a large hot cloud of plutonium/uranium-laced smoke that
would float downwind, causing severe contamination as it went.

We had a Titan II, armed with a nuclear warhead, leak propellant
and blow up in its silo. The warhead landed some distance away,
intact with no release of radioactive materials.

Solid fuel doesn't detonate, though it does burn very hot, so for
your scenario to be valid the warhead would have to be confined
in the conflagration for some time in order to melt, or have its
chemical explosives ignite. For safety reasons, the chemical
explosives might react more slowly to a heat source than their
normal electric/optical? detonators.

Solid fuel doesn't detonate - but solid fuel burning inside an SSBN
tube is going to have a greater effect on the weapon than you might
think because of the confined nature of the tube.

Still, it's worrisome, if only because your neighborhood nuclear
sub base is a prime nuclear target; you'll be part of the collateral
damage. Makes me glad I don't live on Kitsap Peninsula (the location
of Bangor naval base--Bang-or, get it? No, really...)

Oh, just go look up Bangor, WA on Google Earth, and check out the
triangular sub dock/dry dock at:

122.7319 W,47.7429 N

It's called Delta Pier - any guesses why?

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

Rick Jones wrote:
the wreck is under around 18,000
feet of seawater, so no one is going to have a very easy time
getting to it to check.


I thought that was why the USN had/has Ballard?-)


That is mighty deep, even for a ROV. A manned sub that could reach those
depths would be very expensive to operate.
Even Woods Hole's "Alvin", which is considered a very deep-diving
minisub can't get that deep, being limited to 14,764 feet:
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/techno...vin/alvin.html
The Russian "Mir" minisubs could reach it; as they can descend to 20,000
feet, as can the French "Nautile".
The deepest-diving manned sub in service is the Japanese "Shinkai 6500"
which can descend to over 21,300 feet.
Surprisingly, no one has used more modern technologies (like a titanium
pressure sphere for instance) to ever beat the 1960's "Trieste" and its
ability to reach the bottom of the deepest ocean areas.
For comparison, USS Scorpion lies in 10,000 feet of water and USS
Thresher in 8,400 feet.
On the other hand, Glomar Explorer attempted to recover the K-129 from
over 16,000 feet of water after ROVs off of the USS Halibut found it.
Unlike K-129 though the Russians know exactly where K-219 sank at, and I
imagine they would not like any other country's minisubs or ROVs hanging
around the site.
The plutonium in the warheads wouldn't present any radiation problem at
that depth given the excellent shielding properties of water (a fish
swimming by a couple of feet away from exposed plutonium wouldn't get
any exposure, and even a starfish crawling directly over the warhead
wouldn't get any alpha radiation exposure problems unless it crawled
directly over exposed plutonium).
The toxicity problem is more severe by far; but at that depth there
aren't going to many fish getting poisoned by exposed plutonium that are
somehow going to end up in the human food chain, and despite the
toxicity of the plutonium the total amounts of it involved are going get
hugely diluted by the sea to the point where they will fall to
insignificant levels even a mile or so away.
The chemicals used in the explosive lens of the warheads might meet a
interesting end indeed...eaten by microscopic marine organisms like
bacteria.

Pat

Derek Lyons wrote:

Solid fuel doesn't detonate - but solid fuel burning inside an SSBN
tube is going to have a greater effect on the weapon than you might
think because of the confined nature of the tube.


In this case they were worried about the explosives in the warhead
proper detonating; but I can certainly picture that igniting the solid
fuel in the missile. Remember that great Cape Canaveral Polaris test
where the first stage blows up...and the second stage rises out of the
smoke with its engines firing? This would be the inverse of that, with
the explosives in the warhead detonating...and that ignites the third
stage of the Trident, which ignites the second stage of the Trident,
which ignites the first stage of the Trident.
If their concerns of about a "popcorn" detonation of the all the
warheads on all the missiles is correct, then you probably blow the sub
in half, and end up with a real inferno of burning solid-fuel
propellant...including whole burning Trident stages flying through the
air and ending up who knows where miles away.

It's called Delta Pier - any guesses why?


COMRADE! Correct name would be "Delf'in", "Kal'mar", or "Murena" Pier!
Do we call your Ohio class submarines "Black Turd" class?
Yes, we do. :-)

Patsky

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:10:54 -0500, Damon Hill
wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote in
hdakotatelephone:


If the solid fuel in the Tridents ignited due to the explosion, it
would generate a large hot cloud of plutonium/uranium-laced smoke that
would float downwind, causing severe contamination as it went.

We had a Titan II, armed with a nuclear warhead, leak propellant
and blow up in its silo. The warhead landed some distance away,
intact with no release of radioactive materials.

Solid fuel doesn't detonate, though it does burn very hot, so for
your scenario to be valid the warhead would have to be confined
in the conflagration for some time in order to melt, or have its
chemical explosives ignite. For safety reasons, the chemical
explosives might react more slowly to a heat source than their
normal electric/optical? detonators.

Some solid fuels do detonate, and the U.S. Navy at leaat is
remarkably tolerant of the detonable type on their boats. As
the Royal Navy shares its SLBMs with the USN, they presumably
do to.

But the point is moot - if any of the various propellants or
explosives in an SLBM ignite in the tube, it won't matter
whether they detonate, deflagrate, or just combust - the
tube will almost certainly confine the energy output long
enough for them all to cook off, and almost certainly not
afterwards. Total loss of boat, missile, and warheads.

And no nuclear yield, again independant of what ignites and
how. Possible radiological hazard, depending on where the
accident occurs.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-951-9107 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

John Schilling wrote:

But the point is moot - if any of the various propellants or
explosives in an SLBM ignite in the tube, it won't matter
whether they detonate, deflagrate, or just combust - the
tube will almost certainly confine the energy output long
enough for them all to cook off, and almost certainly not
afterwards. Total loss of boat, missile, and warheads.

Which is why the SSBN Weapons Officers Guide V3 stated that "this
casualty is to be avoided at all costs".

It's also why [US and presumably UK] SSBNs have a jettison system.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL

John Schilling wrote:

Some solid fuels do detonate, and the U.S. Navy at leaat is
remarkably tolerant of the detonable type on their boats. As
the Royal Navy shares its SLBMs with the USN, they presumably
do to.


If you define "detonate" as going off in a explosive manner, generating
supersonic explosive shockwaves through the fuel grain matrix, then
that's not true.
The fuel may burn too fast, generating excessive overpressures inside of
the rocket casing which in turn causes it to rupture. But "detonate"
means that you have built a bomb, not a solid fuel engine.
Otherwise, you could make a spectacular monopropellant rocket motor by
filling it up with nitroglycerin. That would make the specific impulse
of all known solid fuel rocket propellant recipes look minor by comparison.
You could also get the rocket in question to go from zero to Mach one in
around a microsecond or two.
Going that route, you could probably ditch the first two stages of the
Saturn V on the Moon missions and blow the S-IVB/Apollo straight onto a
direct lunar ascent trajectory with a huge explosive launch
impulse...particularly if it was fired out of some sort of giant
Florida-based cannon barrel buried in the ground. :-)

Pat