TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter on the effects of the explosion of nuclear weapons has been inserted in a book primarily concerned with the safety of nuclear installations for two reasons. Firstly, those concerned with nuclear safety may be asked questions on the effects of nuclear bombs (perhaps in discussions concerning the differences between the effects of an hypothetical accident of extreme severity in a nuclear reactor and those of the blast of a nuclear bomb). Secondly, because it may be useful, in general, to have a complete picture of the risks of various nuclear applications and of possible types of defence.
Most of the information contained within this chapter has been extracted from Glasstone and Dolan (1977), Becket (1983) and Van Vliet (1992).
From the outset, it must be stated that all the numbers quoted here may be subject to large uncertainties, because of the secrecy which surrounds this issue, because of the understandable absence of a complete experimental basis (given the possible damage to our planet by realistic experiments) and because the consequences depend highly on the specific technical features of each weapon.
It can be said, with some simplification, that three types of nuclear bomb exist:
Fission bombs, of the type detonated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with a power (or, better, energy output ) ranging from several tens to several hundreds of kilotons (thousands) of tons of equivalent TNT.
Thermonuclear fission fusion bombs with an energy output of up to many tens of megatons, where...
