• Question: what is the power of a nuclear bombs shock wave

    Asked by otomoto to Pete, Rebecca, SallyB, Sally, Sian on 17 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Sally Fenton

      Sally Fenton answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      It depends how big the nuclear bomb is! The worlds most powerful bomb was detonated in 1961 over Novaya Zemlya…and had an explosive force of 58 megatons. The bomb was dropped by an air craft 365 meters above the ground and the shock produced by the bomb was so powerful it went 3 times around the earth!!

    • Photo: Sian Lawson

      Sian Lawson answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      about 50% of the energy of the bomb (which could be any size).

    • Photo: Sally Barber

      Sally Barber answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I wikipediaed it… it says its over 50 million tons (50 megatons) – sounds pretty massive!

    • Photo: Peter Styring

      Peter Styring answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      It’s the pressure of the shock wave that’s important. It depends on the size of the bomb but a 1 megatonne bomb will give overpressures of over 350 kPa. A building will collapse with an overpressure of only 35.5 kPa. The other problem is the vacuum created after the initial shock wave has passed.

    • Photo: Rebecca Randell

      Rebecca Randell answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      I can’t give you an exact number of the power that a nuclear bomb can create but in 1962 there was a test of a nuclear bomb and it causes 12million tons of earth to be displaced. They are pretty powerful things.

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