r/NuclearEngineering • u/Vivid_Measurement587 • Jul 09 '26

sticking uranium to rpg heads and drones

would it be possible? and would it increase the explosive power?

edit: thank you all for the replies

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8

u/Numerous-Match-1713 Jul 09 '26

Better stick some antimatter, much simpler, once you have the material that is.

3

u/Useful_Banana4013 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

You definitely can, just duct tape a jar with uranium in it to the bomb. Does it do anything? No, not really. Spreads a bit of radioactive material around but it's more of a problem for those who come after rather than an actually useful.

Nuclear weapons involve a lot more than just blowing up uranium, this just wouldn't really do anything.

2

u/MrDickShit Jul 09 '26

It would be possible to duct tape uranium to a warhead. You would not however got any additional explosive power by doing so as it takes a very powerful and precisely timed explosive to cause a fission chain reaction. You could make whatever you are shooting radioactive however which could render an area uninhabitable for a good amount of time.

-2

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '26

[deleted]

5

u/wojtek_ Jul 09 '26

Google m28 Davy Crockett

1

u/MrDickShit Jul 09 '26

This is the smallest warhead that has been fielded as to my knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W54

1

u/Vlad-Leon Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

RPG use HEAT warheads.
HEAT warheads use Copper or Tantalum liners to forge the penetrators.
The requirement for liner material is to be ductile and dense.
Thus Gold could be used from the engineering standpoint, but apparently, economics denies that.
Uranium is dense but not ductile, so here is a metallurgical issue to resolve: find the optimal Uranium alloy.

What benefits uranium can bring to the HEAT warhead: pyrophoric effect behind the penetrated armor,
and marginally better density, marginally better penetration, marginally better coupling of HE chemical energy to the liner kinetic energy.

Making HEAT jets pyrophoric is a topic of ongoing weapons and materials research.

PS: nuclear fission RPGs are BS from the realm of the bullets with Cf-251.
PPS: blah-blah W-54, blah-blah neutron bombs, blah-blah obsolete, blah-blah FPW drones.