Uranium-233 - Weapon Material

Weapon Material

As a potential weapon material pure uranium-233 is more similar to plutonium-239 than uranium-235 in terms of source (bred vs natural), half-life and critical mass, though its critical mass is still about 50% larger than for plutonium-239. The main difference is the unavoidable co-presence of uranium-232 which can make uranium-233 very dangerous to work on and quite easy to detect.

While it is thus possible to use uranium-233 as the fissile material of a nuclear weapon, speculation aside, there is little publicly available information on this isotope actually having been weaponized. The United States detonated an experimental device in the 1955 Operation Teapot "MET" test which used a plutonium/U-233 composite pit; this was based on the plutonium/U-235 pit from the TX-7E, a prototype Mark 7 nuclear bomb design used in the 1951 Operation Buster-Jangle "Easy" test. Although not an outright fizzle, MET's actual yield of 22 kilotons was significantly enough below the predicted 33 that the information gathered was of limited value. In 1998, as part of its Pokhran-II tests, India detonated an experimental U-233 device of low-yield (0.2 kt) called Shakti V.

The B Reactor and others at the Hanford Site optimized for the production of weapons-grade material have been used to manufacture U-233.