Test:George; Date:8 May June 1951; George shot of the operation Greenhouse was remarkable in many aspects. For one it was the first
successful fusion reaction in the field. Also, George was the largest nuclear detonation to the date, and held that
record up until Mike shot of the operation Ivy. Nevertheless, George was not
a weapon in essence. It was an experimental device to test several design concepts.
Device used during this test was named simply Cylinder. In fact it rather was a disk, 8ft diameter, and 2ft thick.
Cylinder was an implosion type device. The addition was Deuterium capsule, which provided the fuel for the fusion.
The device has been based on George Gamow's design, while the thermonuclear part has been designed by Edward Teller
himself.
The resulting data of George test proved to be highly useful. It had significant impact on the future weapons design,
including boosted devics, and more importantly on radiation implosion,
which was one of the key details of the Teller-Ulam design for the thermonuclear devices.
The yield was 225kt, and it left a large, shallow crater on the island, 1140 feet across and 10 feet deep. This type
of crater is typical for tower detonations.
19713 views