“The Role of Cryogenics in the U.S. Hydrogen Bomb Program and Vice Versa” Ray Radebaugh National Institute of Standards and Technology
Biography:
Dr. Radebaugh was the Group Leader of the Cryogenic Technologies Group for the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, from 1995 until his retirement from NIST in March, 2009. He continues to work for NIST part time under contract and consults in the field of cryocoolers under the business name of Radebaugh Cryogenics. From 1966 to 1968 he was a NRC-NIST Postdoctoral Associate, and was a staff physicist with NIST after 1968 until his retirement. He has conducted and supervised research on measurements and models for cryogenic properties and processes, such as refrigeration and heat transfer, at temperatures ranging from about 10 mK to room temperature. From 1966 until about 1977 he carried out research pertaining to dilution refrigerators. He published the NBS Tech. Note 362 in 1967 on the “Thermodynamic Properties of 3He-4He Solutions with Applications to the 3He-4He Dilution Refrigerator.” In June, 2008, he was appointed a NIST Fellow.
Dr. Radebaugh has published over 200 papers as part of the open literature. He has received several awards, including the Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2003, the Silver Medal in 1995, three best paper awards at the Cryogenic Engineering Conferences, the R&D 100 Award in 1990 for the thermoacoustically driven pulse tube refrigerator, the J&E Hall Gold Medal in 1999 from the Institute of Refrigeration in England for his pioneering work on pulse tube refrigerators, and the 2009 Samuel C. Collins Award from the Cryogenic Engineering Conference for his contributions to cryogenics.
He has been an invited speaker at numerous conferences, including the plenary speaker at the 1996 International Cryogenic Engineering Conference, the 1998 Applied Superconductivity Conference, the 2003 and 2008 International Conference on Cryogenics and Refrigeration, the 25th Low Temperature Physics Conference (2008), and the 2015 Cryogenic Engineering Conference/International Cryogenic Materials Conference. He has taught more than 24 short courses on cryocoolers and three short courses on cryogenics since 1981.
Abstract:
Research on the hydrogen bomb (called the “super” during early work) began at a low level at Los Alamos National Laboratory during the early- to mid-1940s as part of the Manhattan Project. Theorist felt the thermonuclear reaction within liquid deuterium was the simplest and best understood at that time. On January 31, 1950, President Truman gave the order to pursue the hydrogen bomb, which resulted in crash program to develop a large hydrogen liquefier and greatly advance the field of cryogenics. The NBS Cryogenic Engineering Laboratory (CEL) in Boulder was completed in 1952 to house the world’s largest hydrogen liquefier (320 L/hr) at that time and to begin an extensive R&D program in cryogenics. A duplicate liquefier on Eniwetok Atoll in the
Marshall Islands of the Pacific was used to liquefy deuterium gas generated from electrolysis of heavy water at NBS CEL and shipped to Eniwetok. The first full-scale test of thermonuclear fusion used a liquid deuterium secondary enclosed inside a thick steel shell containing the fission primary. Details of the massive cryogenic program, including declassified video clips, leading up to the test of this “wet” device are discussed. The yield of 10.4 Mt in the November 1, 1952, Ivy Mike test was about 500 times that of the WWII fission bombs. During the next year and a half, lighter versions of the “wet” device were under development, but their tests were cancelled after the success of the first “dry” hydrogen bomb that used lithium deuteride. Funding from the Atomic Energy Commission for further cryogenic research pertaining to weapons quickly evaporated, but the newly acquired expertise at NBS in liquid hydrogen and cryogenics in general was put to good use in the newly begun space program and in some other classified programs. The first Cryogenic Engineering Conference held in September, 1954, at NBS/Boulder, was organized because of the need to quickly spread the word about the cryogenic expertise available to new programs. Some of the significant cryogenic advances that came out of the hydrogen bomb program are discussed in this talk.