What is the blast/detonation radius of an nuclear bomb?

Question

For example, if a nuclear bomb were to be detonated in Sacramento California, where would the vaporization radius be and where would the fallout radius be? where would the quaranteen zone be? and things like that??

If you could attach a visual aid you will SURELY get my vote!!

Answer 1

Effects

Explosive yield / Height of Burst



1 kT / 200 m

20 kT / 540 m

1 MT / 2.0 km

20 MT / 5.4 km



Blast—effective ground range GR / km



Urban areas almost completely levelled (20 PSI)

0.2

0.6

2.4

6.4



Destruction of most civilian buildings (5 PSI)

0.6

1.7

6.2

17



Moderate damage to civilian buildings (1 PSI)

1.7

4.7

17

47



Railway cars thrown from tracks and crushed (0.63 kg/cm2)

n/a

1.0

n/a

n/a



Thermal radiation—effective ground range GR / km



Conflagration

0.5

2.0

10

30



Third degree burns

0.6

2.5

12

38



Second degree burns

0.8

3.2

15

44



First degree burns

1.1

4.2

19

53



Effects of instant nuclear radiation—effective slant range1 SR / km



Lethal2 total dose (neutrons and gamma rays)

0.8

1.4

2.3

4.7



Total dose for acute radiation syndrome2

1.2

1.8

2.9

5.4



1) For the direct radiation effects the slant range instead of the ground range is shown here, because some effects are not given even at ground zero for some burst heights. If the effect occurs at ground zero the ground range can simply be derived from slant range and burst altitude (Pythagorean theorem).

2) "Acute radiation syndrome" corresponds here to a total dose of one gray, "lethal" to ten grays. Note that this is only a rough estimate since biological conditions are neglected here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_...

Answer 2

a lot

Answer 3

The blast radius varies widely with the size of the bomb and the thermal effects spread much farther than the blast effects.

A 500kt bomb will have a fireball radius of about 400m,a destruction radius of 5.5km (3.4 mi) and a burn radius (2nd degree) of 9km (5.6mi).

Fallout really only occurs in surface bursts or near-surface bursts where the fireball touches the ground.Airbursts produce very little fallout which is mainly injected into the upper atmosphere and spread globally.Surface bursts produce heavy fallout which is deposited locally within a few hours.As with the blast radius fallout also depends on bomb size.

Answer 4

there are many types of nuclear bombs and several ways they can be detonated. i can only give you a little information - within a millisecond after detonation, the diameter of the fireball from a 1 megaton (Mt) air burst is 150 m. This increases to a maximum of 2200 m within 10 seconds, at which time the fireball is also rising at the rate of 100 m/sec. The initial rapid expansion of the fireball severely compresses the surrounding atmosphere, producing a powerful blast wave.