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Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b
Is that the same as a sub-yield explosion, like the North Koreans keep having happen? Or is a sub-yield explosion simply a mistake in design?
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Thats definitely a mistake in design heehee....
One of the most closely held secrets about nuclear weapons design is the arrangement of explosives around the core of the weapon in order to compress the core equally from all directions at once; the math behind it is incredible and well beyond me. Any mistakes there would result in a imperfect "crush" effect and blow a good part of the core out of the weapon or result in the sub-yield explosion, also called a "fizzile". Keep in mind though that fizziles have had yields from .5 to 5 kilotons. That assumes a "Fat Man" type design as well...as opposed to the "Little Boy" design where explosives are used in a gun-like effect to shoot a slug of fissile material into another fissile component.
I remember reading about the "Plumbbob" tests we performed in the 1950s where we detonated the smallest nuclear explosion on record at only 55 tons of TNT. Not a fizzle, just a very small weapon.