LA-2000 PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS (TID-4500, 13th ed., Supp,.) LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ALAMOS NEW MEXICO REPORT WRITTEN: August 1947 REPORT DISTRIBUTED: March 27, 1956 BLAST WAVE’ Hans A. Bethe Klaus Fuchs Joseph 0. Hirxhfelder John L. Magee Rudolph E. Peierls John van Neumann *This report supersedes LA-1020 and part of LA-1021 =- -l- g$g? ;-E Contract W-7405-ENG. 36 with the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission m 2-0 This report is a compilation of the dedassifid chapters of reports LA.-IO2O and LA-1021, which 11.a.sbeen published becWL’3eof the demnd for the hfcmmatimo with the exception d? CaM@mr 3, which was revised in MN& it reports early work in the field of blast phencmma. Ini$smw’$has the authors had h?ft the b$ Ala.mos kb(mktm’y Wkll this z%po~ was compiled, -they have not had ‘the Oppxrtl.mity to review their
[email protected] and make mx.m%xtti.cms to reflect later tiitii~e ., CONTENTS Page Chapter I INTRODUCTION, by Hans A. Bethe 11 1.1 Areas of Discussion 11 1.2 Comparison of Nuclear and Ordinary Explosion 11 1.3 The Sequence of Events in a Blast Wave Produced by a Nuclear Explosion 13 1.4 Radiation 16 1.5 Reflection of Blast Wave, Altitude Effect, etc. 21 1.6 Damage 24 1.7 Measurements of Blast 26 Chapter 2 THE POINT SOURCE SOLUTION, by John von Neumann 27 2.1 Introduction 27 2.2 Analytical Solution of the Problem 30 2.3 Evaluation and Interpretation of the Results 46 Chapter 3 THERMAL RADIATION PHENOMENA, by John L.