Reassessment of the Atomic Bomb Radiation Dosimetry for Hiroshima and Nagasaki
— Dosimetry System 2002 —
NOTE: free-field radiation
doses are attenuated in concrete buildings & shelters
Report of the Joint US—Japan Working Group
Editors:
Robert W. Young George D. Kerr
ma Ot RERF 2005
RADIATION EFFECTS RESEARCH FOUNDATION
A Cooperative Japan—United States Research Organization
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Hiroshima Neutron Leakage Spectrum
0.1
0.01
DSO2
Source: Radiation Effects Research Foundation,
0.001
"Reassessment of the Atomic Bomb Radiation Dosimetry
Spectrum [moles/kt/MeV]
O. 0 00 { for Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, DSO2, 2002, vol. 1, page 66. Energy as neutrons 3.31 x 10° MeVikt (0.127%) 1e-05 Number of neutrons 0.177 mol/kt Average neutron energy 0.311 MeV 1e-06 Energy as gammas 5.61 x 10 ‘ MeViki_(0.0216%) Number of gammas 6.67 x 10~ mol/kt Average gamma energy 1.40 MeV 1e-07 Hiroshima angle-integrated neutron spectrum.
1e-08 1e-07 1e-06 1e-05 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100 Energy [MeV]
6 rings of U235 around Cylinder of 9 hollow U235 rings 1 inch diameter steel rod (projectile)
Explosive
Tungsten carbide tamper disc (steel backed) 6.5 inch bore gun Tungsten carbide tamper (steel) (13 inch diameter)
15 inch diameter
Little Boy
Uranium rings: (84% U235 enrichment) fuse antenna steel nose forging
51.55 kg U was
80.4% U235 Illustration 6.25” diameter, 16.25” long projectile,
enriched including 7” length of 9 hollow (4” bore) uranium rings (38.5 kg), followed by a tungsten carbide tamper/neutron reflector disc,
ike spain steel-backed to the chemical explosive charge. It was pushed 42”
along the 72” long gun barrel into 6 hollow 4” diameter uranium discs
14.1 kg U was 50% 7” long (25.6 kg), with a 1” bore hole filled by a steel axis bolt U235 enriched extending through the 2,300 kg tungsten carbide/steel nose assembly.
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Gamma-ray Cose rate (CGy/h)
z
= : i 5 G « 1E+02 } (HiroshimaDSO2) { iday °* ' 1.E+01 I | | i = ' 4 ' : Min ae ca 1week jf i 1E+00 aie “TS ) ; : % T+ month {£01 -, ’ 2 a I | i I eo ' ' t 1.£-02 ae | I Da 1,03 —— Center | i +> 400m ‘ ; 1,504 —— stem | I j --+---1000m ' — $ Pace & Smith i ® Miyazaki & Masuda 1.506 0.01 0.1 { 1D
Time after the expiosion (hr)
Zz
-
Pace & Smith Masude etal. Shinchara et.al.
(8-7 = or 8 ee ey eee
1 1) Time efter the expicsion {hr}
Tissue KERMA (cGy)
structures within
fire damage to
Built-up area of city —e-= Severe blast and
“ a & =
in DNA 5512F.
Institute (NMRI) performed levels of 0.069 milliroentgen per hour (mR/hr) in the contour. Source:
oot ‘dual radiati
Results of the Naval Medical Research of ground zero and 0.011 mR/hr at the outermost
November 1-2, 1945 vicinity
2F.
DNA 551
represented on the map
in Heroshima, only 0,95 (ly) burnis) on i acl burns were due to ignited clothing, and only 0.7% (15 burns) were due to burns by firestorm flames!
TABLE 8.3A Number of Persons with Burns from Different Causes (Tokyo Imperial University’s First Survey, October-November 1945)
Distance from Secondary Burnst_ | Secondary Burnst Hypocenter (km) From Clothes on Fire By Flame Total Burns ae » (3.3) 1.1-1.5 1 327 (1.1) 1.6-2.0 4 4 717 (0.5) (1.2) 2.1-2.5 6 558 (0.8) 2.6-3.0 5 3 140 (0.8) (0.5) a : " (2.8) (0.7) 3.64.0 l 4 (2.4) Total 17 15 1,881 (0.9) (0.7)
* Primary burns are burns by thermal rays from the A-bomb.
+ Secondary burns are burns by fire other than thermal rays.
t Figures in parentheses are percentages of incidence.
Source: T. Kajitani and S. Hatano, “Medical survey on acute effects of atomic bomb in Hiroshima,” in CRIABC vol. I, p. 522.
Note: there were 5 burns cases within 0.6 km, all primary TABLE 8.3B Region of Burns
Outdoors Indoors |Outdoors Indoors |Outdoors Indoors |Outdoors Indoors Number of 179 44 1,030 127 643 78 1,526 355 persons (11.7)* = (12.3) (67.4) (35.7) (42.1) (21.9) Total 223 ist 721 1,881
(11.8) (61.5) (38.3)
* Figures in parentheses are percentages of incidence. Source: T. Kajitani and S. Hatano, “Medical survey on acute effects of atomic bomb in Hiroshima,” in CRIABC vol. I, p. 522.
Above: extract from "Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Social and Medical Effects", 1981 by the Japanese Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by Atomic Bombs
SURVIVAL IN WOODEN AND CONCRETE BUILDINGS, HIROSHIMA
TABLE 7.3 Casualties among the Groups Exposed to the Atomic Bomb inside | Wooden | Houses, Hiroshima
x
Two-story
Distance and Direction from
Hypocenter (km)
Name of Building
Lodging for an itinerant theatrical troupe
Second Hiroshima Army Hospital | Single-story
Source: Science Council of Japan, Genshibakudan Saigai Chésa Hokokusho [SRIABC] (Tokyo: Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkdkai, 1951), p. 25.
TABLE 7.4 Casualties among the Groups Exposed to the Atomic Bomb inside| Concrete|Buildings, Hiroshima
Direction and Distance from Hypocenter (km)
Name of Building
The Bank of Japan, Hiro- three-story
shima Branch
two-story four-story three-story
Broadcasting Station Communication Bureau Japan Red Cross Hospital, Hiroshima
* While the total number of exposed is known, it has not been possible to determine how many died instantly or soon after the explosion. Source: Science Council of Japan, Genshibakudan Saigai Chésa Hokokusho [SRIABC] (Tokyo: Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkdkai, 1951), p. 26.
Above: extract from "Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Social and Medical Effects", 1981
27/08/2015
12) Radiation Effects Research Foundation 25.) A Cooperative Japan-US Research Organization
Solid cancer risks among atomic-bomb survivors - Radiation Effects Research Foundation
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Lj Top > Lj Research Activities > Radiation Health Effects > Late effects on survivors > Details
Solid cancer risks among atomic-bomb survivors
Increased risk of cancer is the most important late effect of radiation exposure seen in A-bomb survivors. For cancers other than leukemia (solid cancers), excess risk associated with radiation started to appear about ten years after exposure. This was first noted by a Japanese phy sician, Gensaku Obo, in 1956, and it led to continuing comprehensive analyses of cancer mortality and to the creation of tumor registries by the city
medical associations in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For most solid cancers, acute radiation exposure at any age increases one’ s cancer risk for the rest of life. As survivors have aged, radiation-associated excess rates of solid cancer have increased as well as the background rates. For the average radiation exposure of survivors within 2,500 meters (about 0.2 Gy), the increase is about 10% above normal age-specific rates. For a dose of 1.0 Gy, the corresponding cancer excess is about
50% (relative risk = 1.5).
Tumor registries were initiated in 1957 in Hiroshima and 1958 in Nagasaki. During the period from 1958 to 1998, 7,851 malignancies (first primary ) were observed among 44,635 LSS survivors with estimated doses of >0.005 Gy. The excess number of solid cancers is estimated as 848 (10.7%) (Table). The dose-response relationship appears to be linear, without any apparent threshold below which effects may not occur (Figure
1).
Table. Excess risk of develop ing solid cancers in LSS, 1958-1998
a ae LSS subjects os Attributable risk
(Gy) Observed Estimated excess
0.005 - 0.1 Zito 4,406 81 1.8%
0.1 - 0.2 3,527 968 75 7.6%
0.2 - 0.5 3,939 1,144 179 15.7%
0.5 - 1.0 3,173 688 206 29.5%
1.0 - 2.0 1,647 460 196 44.2%
>2.0 564 185 111 61.0%
Total 44,635 7,851 848 10.7%
http:/Mmww.rerf.jp/radef/late_e/cancrisk html
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27/08/2015 Leukemia risks among atomic-bomb survivors - Radiation Effects Research Foundation
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Leukemia risks among atomic-bomb survivors
Excess leukemia was the earliest delayed effect of radiation exposure seen in A-bomb survivors. Japanese physician Takuso Yamawaki in Hiroshima first noted an increase of leukemia cases in his clinical practice in the late 1940s. This led to the establishment of a registry of leukemia and related disorders and to the initial
reports on elevated leukemia risks published in the early 1950s.
Risks for radiation-induced leukemia differ in two major respects from those for most solid cancers. First,
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radiation causes a larger percent increase in leukemia rates (but a smaller number of cases since leukemia is
Greetings ‘ ‘ : j : relatively rare, even in heavily exposed survivors), and second, the increase appears sooner after exposure,
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Organization especially in children. The excess leukemias began appearing about two years after radiation exposure, and the
Operations and Finance/ excess peaked at about 6-8 years after exposure. Today, little if any excess of leukemia is occurring. Compliance with Laws
Yearly Schedule
Research Activities Because the Life Span Study (LSS) cohort was based on the 1950 national census, quantitative descriptions of
leukemia risks in A-bomb survivors have been based on cases diagnosed from that year on. As of the year Research Programs
: —— 2000, there were 204 leukemia deaths among 49,204 LSS survivors with a bone marrow dose of at least 0.005 Active Research Protocols
Ethics Committee Gy, an excess of 94 cases (46%) attributable to A-bomb radiation (Table). In contrast to dose-response Radiation Health Effects
Views on Residual Radiation
Highlights in Research Progress
patterns for other cancers, that for leukemia appears to be nonlinear; low doses may be less effective than
would be predicted by a simple linear dose response. Even for doses in the 0.2 to 0.5 Gy range, however, risk
Partner Graduate Schools is elevated (Figure 1). Library Recent Scientific Papers Table. Observed and estimated excess number of leukemia deaths List of Publications in LSS population, 1950-2000 Woelsinar Weighted marrow Deaths Downloadable Data dose Subjects Attributable risk Historical Materials (Gy) Observed Estimated excess Request for Publications 0.005 - 0.1 30,387 69 4 6%
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0.1 - 0.2 5,841 14 5 36% oman EEE 0.2-0.5 6,304 27 10 37% Tour Reservations Inquiries 0.5 - 1.0 3,963 30 19 63% Open House 1.0 - 2.0 1,972 39 28 72% Request for Donations
>2.0 737 25 28 100%
Procurement & Contracts Links Total 49,204 204 94 46%
Site Map relative risk (ERR) and the right panel excess absolute risk (EAR).
References about this subject
tml
Ga Preston DL, Shimizu Y, et al.: Studies of mortality of atomic bomb survivors. Report 13. Solid cancer and
==" noncancer disease mortality: 1950-1997. Radiation Research 2003; 160:38 1-407
[=|=| Preston DL, Ron E, et al.: Solid cancer incidence in atomic bomb survivors: 1958-1998. Radiation Research
==" 2007; 168:1-64
[Ele Preston DL, Pierce DA, et al.: Effect of recent changes in atomic bomb survivor dosimetry on cancer
mortality risk estimates. Radiation Research 2004; 162:377-89
Ron E, Preston DL, et al.: Cancer incidence in atomic-bomb survivors. Part IV: Comparison of cancer
incidence and mortality. Radiation Research 1994; 137:98-112 1/3
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MORTALITY (%)
Hirosnima TOTAL MORTALITY VERSUS PEAK OVERPRESSURE IN NAGASAKI
PERSONNEL LOCATIONS
3: WFD - WOOD FRAME DWELLING
i= WFC - WOOD FRAME COMMERCIAL
== LSF - LIGHT STEEL FRAME 775: NRC - NON-SEISMIC REINFORCED = CONCRETE =i: SRC - SEISMIC REINFORCED CONCRETE =a SRC-L - LOWER FLOORS
3 SEISMIC REINFORCED CONCRETE
BESS ff HEHE Heer i] oe
‘f° 49 ae oS Sees
A ES
= = = 23552535, sscSeiBS S3555522252 4 6 8 10 PEAK OVERPRESSURE (PSI)
TOTAL MORTALITY VERSUS PEAK OVERPRESSURE IN HIROSHIMA
100 EEEEEEEEEEEE PERSONNEL LOCATIONS a LSF-LIGHTSTEELFRAME = GESSEHBLSF eee eA EEESE NRC - NON-SEISMIC REINFORCED CONCRETE 60 SRC-M - MIDDLE FLOORS SEISMIC REINFORCED CONCRETE G=3= : = HHH gett SSEEESSsai ipsui iste indi teas : : fail Hin aS 40 ES
MORTALITY (%)
tf Haga aig ib Hite aia
HE HE EER ESS
ESS COGS se Soe ee Sones 5408 FEEES mTEET HI HHT bs Her nrre
20
1s SHES
nile Bl 33358
: ESEISM REINFORCED C L
Seecesesse=-- .- See=-- _..casde - ==
se r — PEAK OVERPRESSURE (PSI)
No
MORTALITY AS A FUNCTION OF TIME AFTER NUCLEAR ATTACK ON HIROSHIMA
100 1 rrp SE TT eee em emma mT TAT sok iM 3 TR i a i HA A ea SR aul Tea aa eet a iL soll a ae nna a A MURS ec at i il a i arta = oe ‘i ae a SRC Selamic Reinforced Concrete | te HAT iff LAT r i ei i tt Tm lee HTH Wen Woe krame wetting 2 vate ii nay WEC cient a od Frat i Scop Ht ittos | LG Hn TITIIIIE| OS Outside Shielded it 5 Se ue, ST} OV Outside Unshielded i =40 ‘id PRET EER HEMT ETT i i TETHER ead soll L. Wayne Davis, William L. Baker, and Donald L. Summers,
| “Analysis of Japanese Nuclear Casualty Data", DC-FR-1054 (1966) Dirkwood Corp., AD653922, Fig. 61 ata Ara BUNT IRETU LU UEL lag TTT
eo HAT hn FURUUESRATEL ANTRAL 90
20 eH 24,044 case histories in Hiroshima
a cert zg A
0 50 70 Time after explosion Ta)
100
60
ee
i384 aS Em
Left: the Diurkwood Corporation analysis of the mortality rates as a function of peak over- pressure in Nagasaki and Hiroshima is based on 24,044 traced case histories in Hiroshima and 11,055 in Nagasaki
(a total of 35,099 cases). The report by L. Wayne Davis,
Wiliam L. Baker, and
Donald L. Summers.
Analysis of Japanese Casualty Data, DC-FR- 1054, AD653922
(1966). summarises the effects versus distance.
A classified report by L. Wayne Davis, et al., Prediction of Urban Casualties and the Medical Load from a High-Yield
Nuclear Burst,
§ Dutkwood Corporation
DC-P-1060
compares the
paper (1968),
peak overpressures for
t the casualties in each
: city to those from the
= main Texas’ City Disaster surface burst explosion of 1947,
; when 0.67 kt of explo- {sive in a ship detonated
after a fire. (This is corrected for the effec- tive explosion energy, which was less than the total mass of explosive involved because some was on a nearby dock and did not explode simultaneously, and some burned without detonating.) Comparison of mor- tality versus peak over- pressure curves for dit- ferent events shows the nuclear the firestorm at Hiroshima
influence of
radiation and
on total casualty rates.
Hiroshima
o
t ! wwewe | ||
-2
- 2 ; —
=. a
Above: building 18 (the 7-story Fukoku department store Above right: building 5, located at just 193 m from ground building), survived 20 psi peak overpressure blast at just 329 zero Hiroshima. Designed to survive a lateral load of 10% m from ground zero in Hiroshima. It burned hours later. of its weight (Japanese minimal safety standard legislation).
|
es
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—* *& a \
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4
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"6 Ble saa area
Hiroshima
DIRECT EFFECTS OF 1 MT SURFACE BURST Lét: the 1973 U. S. Department
of Defense DCPA Aftack LIGHT DAMAGE TO COMMERCIAL-TYPE BUILDINGS,
ae MODERATE DAMAGE TO SMALL RESIDENCES om Environment Manual provided
1p aes Fly > _ oo a Co this caine: Seaiuenes ame eee: on os) pressure analysis, associating
ON a a, the 5-12 psi peak overpressure
io seca iieacenietarscrictieiaeieiaaatil o, zone with 50 mortality, without
TYPE BUILDINGS, SEVERE DAMAGE TO eg 100 source references. It was used SIRALL RESIDENCES ey to for grossly deceptive exaggeration,
sy fy 0-1 PSI ignoring civil defence effectiveness by
SEVERE DAMAGE TO m 25 75 the 1979 U. S. Office of eae *, | % Technology Assessment study,
2 The Effects of Nuclar War.
Deceptions were excluded
DESTRUCTION OF ALL EXCEPT SPECIALLY DESIGNED FACILITIESo, 5
MAX FIREBALL RADIUS 0.7 MILE OVER 12 PSI
from public scrutiny, debate and analysis by deliberately assigning reports secret and/or “limited distribution” (ostensi-
Src ir
CRATER DIAM. 0.24 MILE PY 3 5 7 MILE
Left: 50% of 100 people survived inside the concrete Bank of Japan (building 24
bly to keep it from Moscow).
in Hiroshima, in the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report) at a peak over- pressure of 18 psi, just 390 metres from ground zero in Hiroshima. This was well inside the “firestorm” area, and only 7.5 m from the nearest burning building. A second floor fire, due to a firebrand blown through a broken window, was extinguished by the survivors using water fire buckets at 1.5 hours after the nuclear explosion. Note 3rd floor windows soot.
The evacuated 3rd floor suffered a fire- brand ignition, which was discovered too
~ late to extinguish, and burned wzthout
BANK OF JAPAN, HIROSHIMA (BUILDING 24) spreading to lower floors. (Source: DCPA - , Attack Environment Manual, Chapter 3,
Panel 26, 1973. The U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report shows that it had
my &
_ 2 —
1? inch thick reinforced concrete walls and 20 inches of sand on the roof.)
Left: the Geibi Bank building (building 18) after it survived 8 psi peak overpres- sure at 293 metres from ground zero in Hiroshima, again inside the “firestorm” area. It survived fire completely; fire- brands blown in through first and third floor broken windows at 2.25 hours after the explosion ignited curtains and furni- ture but these fires were extinguished by survivors using water fire buckets. (The
U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey reported
; : ——_ .
GEIBI BANK COMPANY, HIROSHIMA (BUILDING 18)
it had 10 inch reinforced concrete walls.)
Hiroshima
LOW YIELD WEAPONS (SHORT BLAST WIND DURATION)
THERMAL SHADOWING (BEFORE BLAST ARRIVAL) SHADOWED FRACTION OF WINDOWS FACING THE FIREBALL
30% (1-2 STORY)
50% (3 STORY)
Inco
20
DIRKWOOD CORP. REPORT DC-TN-1058-1 CURVES: L. WAYNE DAVIS, DC-P-1060-1
OUTDOORS IN FIRE AREA
iQ ‘s Pian = IN BRICK BUILDINGS re) s | _/_GROUP IN WWII GERMAN CELLARS a FRIEDRICKSHAFEN UL OYAMA FCs! 0 200 400 600
800
Above: for any particular peak overpressure, the duration of the blast winds and accompanying “dynamic” (wind) pressure is proportional to the cube-root of the explo- sion yield. A megaton yield weapon exerts the same overpressure and dynamic (wind) forces at a given peak overpressure as a low yield weapon, but the time these forces last for is greater. Thes reduces the vertical load falling on people lying flat to avoid horizontal wind drag and the wind- carried debris. Therefore, although the wind speed and the dynamic pressure are independent of weapon yield (for a given peak overpressure), they last longer if the explo- sion yield is increased, so debris is spread over a wider area.
This does vot affect the peak velocity attained by small
PEAK, MILLIONS OF BTU PER SQUARE MILE PER SECOND
Above: nuclear explosions do nof provide burning fuel like incendiary air-raids on wooden cities, and hijacked aircraft hitting the Twin Towers on 11 September 2001 (where burning aviation fuel melted the steel frame). At Hiroshima, shadowing protected most window contents.
pieces of debris, which quickly attain their peak veloci- ty in the blast wind regardless of the duration of the blast. However, it does affect the time they are blown by ' the blast wave, and therefore the distance they travel.
Above: 1 psi peak overpressure extinguishing paper and curtain fires, like a match in a 70 miles per hour wind (source: T. Goodale, Effects of Air Blast on Urban Fires, URS 7009-14, 1970). The mecha- nism for the blast to extinguish fires is simple: hurricane winds cool the fuel below its ignition temperature, putting the fire out. This is a much bigger problem of lighting a match in a very strong wind. This mechanism put out 50% of Goodale’s curtain fires at 1 psi, and 100% at >2.5 psi, but it did not operate with red hot lumps of char- coal in Hiroshima’s breakfast braziers or with pans of burning oil in other blast tests, because the lip of the pan shelters the hot surface
of the fuel from the cooling blast wind. The blast winds do not blow out hard-to-ignite thick fuels like mattresses and Encore-type cot- - ton-padded furniture, where the structure itself protects the hot interior fuel from exposure to the cooling blast winds. In one room at the Encore nuclear test of 1953 the wall around the window shielded burning rubbish from the cooling blast winds. The U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey found at Hiroshima that although 107 of the 130 large buildings surveyed eventually burned, only 20% were ignited within 30 minutes of fhe nuclear explosion, so people escaped fires (source: FEMA Attack Environment Manual, 1982).
Hiroshima
HIROSHIMA
Figure 11
MORTALITY AND CASUALTY RATES WOODEN AND CONCRETE BUILDINGS COMPARED
(AS OF LATE AUG. 1945)
x Dead general mortality Severly injured * 2 Slightly injured “ Uninjured ra) °o Injured Unknown ° = 74 Ke general mortality Be w - w «x 2 2 . oO 2295 re)
*6%e%e%e DOOOR . OO
or eretets
BOO eters
2 3 TELGPH. TELPHN CITY COMM'N BRANCH FFI POST SAVINGS ee Se — OFFICE OFFICE g 6 @ 8 e eS e ) es e 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 400 1600 1000 2000 OISTANCE IN METERS
Above: Fig. 12 from Ashley W. Oughterson, et al., Medical Effects of Atomic Bombs: The Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan, Volame VI, U. S. Army Institute of Pathology, NP-3041, 1951, comparing the overall gen- eral mortality tor Hiroshima with the mortality inside wooden and concrete buildings. Hiroshima’ obsolete wooden houses had a higher mortality than concrete buildings.
Table 12 of that report is the basis of most of the data in Table 12.21 on page 547 of the 3rd edition (1977) of Glasstone and Dolan’s book, Effects of Nuclear Weapons, which averages Hiroshima survival data for concrete buildings and correlates it to “degrees of damage,” not distance. Ibis correlation can be deceptive, because some casu- alties in concrete buildings were not due to blast effects, but due to nuclear radiation, which predominated on the upper floors, where there was less shielding from the air burst overhead than Jor the lower floors. Most fire damage to these buildings occurred 2-3 hours later at the height of the firestorm,
by which time most survivors had evacuated, so she fire damage in concrete buildings did not determine casualty rates (e.g., 207 out of 400 people swrvived in Hiroshima’s Post Office, burned-out just 200 metres from ground zero).
Glasstone and Dolan’s Table 12.21 correlates “severe damage” to 88% killed in the two reinforced concrete buildings right next to ground zero in Hiroshima.
To correlate “moderate damage” to 14% mortality (106 killed out of 775 people), Glasstone and Dolan average NP-3041’s Table 12 data for Hiroshima’s Telegraph Office at 500 metres (301 occupants, 45 killed) and the Central Telephone Office at 600 metres (474 occu- pants, 61 killed). Glasstone and Dolan’s correlation of “light damage” to 8% killed is NP-3041’s Table 12 for Hiroshima City Hall at 1.1 km (216 occupants, 18 died up to 10 November 1945) and the Communications Office at 1.2 km (682 occupants, 56 killed). These data only apply to an unwarned population inside concrete buildings.
Hiroshima
™ INCIDENT WAVE
REFLECTED \ WAVE
—— -—
MACH REFLECTION ——— REGULAR REFLECTION
Above: in any au burst explosion over a surface, the down- ward blast wave reflects off the ground, so at locations near ground zero and above the ground surface two blast waves are felt: the direct (incident) blast moves radially outwards the detonation point, and is soon followed by the upward- moving ground reflected blast wave which moves radially outwards from an imaginary mirror point which is located at one burst altitude below ground zero. But this simple mur- ror-like “regular reflection” only applies to distances within a ground radius equal to about the height of burst.
LOW ALTITUDE BURST
At greater distances, the ground-reflected blast wave, mov- ing faster than the direct blast wave (because it moves through air which has been heated by 1999 the direct blast wave), with the direct blast wave and rapid-
catches up
ly merges to form a fused blast wave. This fused blast wave is sometimes called the “Mach stem,” and it has a height which rapidly grows with dis- tance from ground zero, but rapidly decreases with increasing burst alti- tude. Fora 1 kt aw burst at height H
feet, the Mach stem height at ground
BURST HEIGHT, FEET
distance R feet is given by approxi- mately (R - H)?/(R + 7.4X 10°H?) feet + 20%, for distances R > H, since the Mach stem only begins to
form at a distance from ground zero
Right: peak overpressures from 1 kt yield 0 Nevada nuclear air bursts (DASA-1200).
Sanaa.
sumilar to the burst altitude. (Our equation is based on the Mach stem height graphs in TM 23-200 and DNA-EM-1. For yields over W = 1 kt, all heights and distances should
scale up in proportion to W !/3,)
A similar fusion of direct and ground reflected blast waves will occur above the fireball region if the burst height is less than 160W 1/3 feet + 15% where Wis the standard (total) weapon yield in kilotons, sumply because the ground-reflected blast wave is greatly speeded up while it is travelling through the extremely hot fireball (TM 23-200 and DNA-EM-1).
The Mach stem’ peak overpressure 1s doubled by energy added to the direct wave by fusion with the ground reflected wave (ignoring energy losses due to “air slap’ -type ground shock), causing a “knee” in graphs of peak overpressure versus distance. Using the cube-root scaling law, this doubling of energy in the Mach stem increases dis- tances for overpressures by a factor of 2!/3 = 1.26. But this is smaller than the measured Mach wave pressure enhance- AWRE team measured the various enhancements in British nuclear tests over surfaces
ments in nuclear tests. Penney’s
of different colours, and chemical explosion air bursts over concrete. Penney argues in his 1970 paper on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts that thermal flash energy absorbed by a surface convectively heats air, so the surface Mach region engulfs a considerable fraction of the downward-directed thermal pulse energy, at distances where the arrival times of the blast wave correspond to the emission of a large fraction of the thermal flash from the fireball.
At most 50% of the thermal flash energy in an air burst (that travelling downward, for a dark coloured surface) can be convectively transferred to the air just above the surface, but since this energy ts added to only a small fraction of the complete volume of the blast wave, this pressure enhancement by cumulative engulfment of hot air over desert ts greater than the enhancement due to the blast wave fusion in the Mach stem. The graph below shows the progressive thermal enhancement from engulfed hot aur.
ENHANCEMENT EFFECT INCREASES DUE TO CUMULATIVE THERMAL SURFACE HEATING
TELAT EL LL TIA 7
1500 DISTANCE FROM GROUND ZERO, FEET
Hiroshima
S
1 KT NUCLEAR TESTS NO PRECURSOR
1 PSI PEAK OVERPRESSURE
2 PSI PEAK OVERPRESSURE . TS
BURST HEIGHT, FEET
Pt et er Pet ||
7000
ee ee <TD) wor aie soostIng | ae
6 1
nO
3000 DISTANCE FROM GRC GROUND EI ZERO, FEET
Above: peak overpressures from 1 kt yield Nevada nuclear air bursts (DASA-1200, and Glasstone and Dolan 1977). The 1 psi peak overpressure Mach stem from a 1 kf air burst at 1,500 feet altitude stretches out to 7,000 feet from ground zero, compared to just 4,000 feet for a surface burst (where the direct and ground reflected blast waves also fuse into a single Mach wave. This fac- tor of 1.75 increase shows that 1.75° or 5.36 times more energy is present in the air burst blast wave, which is caused by surface hot air, due to the thermal flash heating in Nevada (50 miles visibility). Penney’s 19/0 paper debunks the basic predic-
GROUND DIRECT REFLECTED BLAST WAVE
BLAST WAVE \rRiPLE POINT tions of the blast effects
of nuclear weapons, because the cube-root scaling law does not apply to thermal radiation heating enhancement effects on blast (neither ther-
mal energy delivery times
DUST PRESHOCK THERMAL LAYER nor thermal energy deliv- Additionally, any ther-
mal enhancement will be subjected to attenuation by weath-
ery scale by the cube-root of yield).
er like cloud and fog between the detonation altitude and the surface, and in any case differently coloured surfaces will heat up to a differing extent, causing different amounts of enhancement to the peak overpressure. White concrete sur- faces will reflect more of the thermal pulse away from the surface, but dark surfaces will heat up to very high temper- atures on the ground in the proximity to a nuclear air burst, which convectively heats a “preshock thermal layer” of air.
However, if the surface sand contains water of mineraliza- tion, this water breaks up or “popcorns” the sand crystals into dust when sufficiently scorched by the thermal flash, and a hurricane strength sandstorm races ahead of the main shock wave in what is called the “precursor,” which actually reduces the peak overpressure while the dynamic (wind) pressure impulse is enhanced due to the kinetic energy of the dust. A precursor wind blew hot dust into the open entrances of hillside tunnel shelters in Nagasaki, causing skin burns to personnel. Compressed air refracts light, distorting scenes and in a clear sky smoke trails from rockets can be laid down before burst to allow the Mach stem height and precursor to be filmed in nuclear tests. A precursor was first pho-
tographed in the 1952 Twmbler4 Nevada test. Precursors
only formed in bursts low enough (<650/ /3 feet, where V
is yield in kt; TM 23-200, Fig. 2-17) to popcorn sand. Upshot-Knothole-9, 26 kt at 2,400 ft, formed no precursor.
100 1150 FEET GROUND RANGE FROM PLUMBBOB-PRISCILLA (WT-1473) 87 PSI PEAK OVERPRESSURE 2 te = a oe 37 KT, 700 FT BURST HEIGHT = > re) PRECURSOR 0 TIME AFTER NUCLEAR EXPLOSION (SECONDS) 0.7 50
a FRONTOF | & BACK OF
o BUILDING < BUILDING
ws C3
x % | PRECURSOR
a 4
ww a.
oe a
a wi
& > 0
2 = ro)
0 TIME(SECONDS) 9.7 Q TIME(SECONDS) 0.7
10 X 11 X 17 FOOT BLOCKHOUSE BUILDING, 1150 FEET GROUND RANGE FROM 37 KT PLUMBBOB-PRISCILLA 700 FEET HEIGHT AIR BURST IN NEVADA PEAK OVERPRESSURE IN MACH STEM = 87 PSI (SOURCE: WT-1473)
Above: the total overpressure loading on the front and back of a rigid concrete blockhouse. The free field peak overpressure was 87 psi, which increased to over 400 psi when the shock wave reflected at normal incidence on the front face of the building (a head-on collision). The basic reflection effect doubles the pres- sure, but there is an additional increase in strong shock waves from the conversion of the windpressure into overpressure (the horizontal component of the wind is stopped a head on collision with a rigid surface, converting it into additional overpressure). On the back of the building the peak overpressure was under 40 psi.
PRESHOCK THERMAL LAYER TEMP, C
Above: the 15 kt Upshof-Knothole Grable air burst at 524 feet in 1953, a 280 mm diameter nuclear cannon shell (gun assembly using U-235 to avoid preinitiation from the high spontaneous fission rate in plutonium), produced a very hot preshock thermal layer:
2000 NOL DATA GRABLE Ce 15 KT, 524 FT
0,000 ROUND RANGE, FEET
Hiroshima
600 | UPSHOT-KNOTHOLE, WT-782, Fig 2.46 [16 KT AT 300 Fl] _15 KT AT 524 BURST HEIGHT | FEET HEIGHT
HEIGHT OF MACH STEM, FEET
—t
1000 DISTANCE FROM GROUND ZERO, FEET
Above: the Mach stem height and precursor height are vitally important in air bursts, because fhese phenomena only occur over a certain range of heights in an air burst. Increasing the height of burst considerably reduces the Mach stem height at a fixed distance. If the height of the Mach stem is lower than the building it encounters, only the floors below the Mach stem height will be subject to a single, horizontally-moving shock wave, and
DYNAMIC AND OVERPRESSURE PRECURSOR BLAST WAVEFORMS 75 2000 FEET FROM GROUND ZERO, GRABLE, NEVADA (15 KT 524 FT AIR BURST)
2 2, Fa 2 P| iW SAND BLASTING 2 5 rr BY GRIT CAUSES 2 = Qa z VIBRATIONS é ~ ro) > a
0 0
0.8 0.6 0.8
TIME AFTER BURST, SEC
REVERSED WIND (TOWARD GROUND ZERO)
MEASUREMENTS AT 10 FEET HEIGHT (PRECURSOR WAS SLIGHTLY WEAKER AT 40 FEET HEIGHT)
Above: the most important effects of the precursor on overpres- sure and dynamic pressure are changes in fhe waveform shape, not the change in the peak pressure. Examples are shown for the 1953 Grable test, a 15 kt burst detonated at a height of 524 feet over Nevada desert sand. The waveforms for both overpressure and dynamic pressure at 1,419-2,000 feet are completely domi- nated by the precursor “sandstorm,” with jagged fluctuations due to pressure sensor vibrations from impacts of dust, sand, grit, and small stones during sandblasting. At 2,000 feet (above left), the dynamic pressure remains near its peak value for most of the pos- itive phase, instead of falling rapidly after a spiked peak, which occurs when no precursor is present (compare fhe graphs above
Right: the “ideal” overpressure at time
SOURCE: DOLAN, DNA-EM.-1
Van NCCC TT \ ee I\\ [ssi ora
tafter blast arrival in a free air burst is p= p(l - t/t,°)/(1 + 0.1p7/4,*)
where / is the peak overpressure in is the overpressure (posi-
The “ideal” dynamic pressure g, falls even faster
. + psi, and 7,
tive phase) duration.
DYNAMIC PRESSURE, FRACTION OF PEAK
with time: g ~ 2.5p7/(p + 7 Po), where
P, is ambient atmospheric pressure.
TIME AFTER BURST, SEC
(SOURCE: WT-782, FIG. 2.37)
1 TIME, FRACTION OF POSITIVE PHASE DURATION
GRABLE PRECURSOR AND MACH STEM
0.659 SEC 15 KT AT 524 FT ALTITUDE (WT-782, FIG 2.31)
0.507 SEC
wf 0.406 SEC
0.30 SEC
/
/
; MACH STEM
0.20 SEC
HEIGHT IN FEET
1300 1000 DISTANCE FROM GROUND ZERO, FEET
higher floors will experience two shock waves. In the latter case, the direct wave comes radially (on a downward slant) from the detonation point, but the ground-reflected shock wave comes on an upward slant from a mirror point one burst height below ground. These non-horizontal angles of incidence reduces the horizontal wind or dynamic pressure component, as compared to the Mach wave. The vertical wind does not blow things sideways.
GRABLE: 15 KT AT 524 FEET BURST HEIGHT (SOURCE: WT-782)
921 FT GROUND RANGE
+0.1 +0.2 +0.3 SEC
0.1915 SEC
a 1419 FT GROUND RANGE
& 207 MAXIMUM PRECURSOR
= 9
PA 0.351 SEC +0.1 +0.2 +0.3 SEC
= 10 2417 FT GROUND RANGE
re
>
Oo 0 | oT ea eee ee 0.974 SEC +0.1 +0.2 +0.3 SEC
sucnon 7.54 LRECURSOR GONE 9916 FT GROUND RANGE
0 1.367 SEC +0.1 +0.2 MAIN SHOCK WAVE OVERTAKING PRECURSOR AT 2417-2916 FT
+0.3 SEC
to “ideal” blast waveforms, below). Consequently, the dynamic pressure impulse (dynamic pressure integrated over time) is greatly increased in a precursor for a given fixed peak pressure.
An example of the role of the precursor's dynamic pressure impulse in damaging wind drag-sensitive targets is the effect of the Grable precursor on World War Il jeeps. On the previous test, Encore, where there was no precursor, jeeps were rolled up to 11 metres and moderately damaged. But for a similar peak over- pressure, the precursor of Grable caused severe damage or the complete destruction of jeeps, with chassis, engine and wheel debris blown for distances of over 300 m (ref.: DNA-5826F, p. 2).
SOURCE: DOLAN, DNA-EM-1
NEE SERRE
NK NEAR IDEAL SURFACE, NO PRECURSOR Ne RES NAN,
OVERPRESSURE, FRACTION OF PEAK
0 1 TIME, FRACTION OF POSITIVE PHASE DURATION
Above: Glasstone’s Effects of Nuclear Weapons points out Japanese buildings were constructed of timbers containing many pre-cut tenons, which weakened their strength. The typical wooden house at the top survived without fire damage 1.0 mile from ground zero, Hiroshima. The
lower photo shows the construction method, using timbers with many tenons.
Above: three Japanese beer bottles fused together in the Hiroshima firestorm. Glass did not melt due to the thermal flash. The U. S$. Strategic Bombing Survey, Medical Division, The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Health and Medical Services in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, March 1947, documents life continuing in the cities, on pages 81-83:
“Mitsubishi shipyards in Nagasaki were operating on a very reduced capacity. On 27 October [1945] they launched a 10,000- ton steel cargo ship, laid the keel for another one on 3 November, and had 5 other ships under way. ... Other shipyards were beginning or continuing operations and 6 steel ships were under way. Buildings were not available for other operations and labor was scarce. ... There was a critical shortage of skilled as well as unskilled labor, to a lesser extent owing to the removal of Koreans, Chinese, and pris- oners of war. ... In Hiroshima ... Only 26 per- cent of the total industrial capacity of the city was destroyed ...”
Hiroshima
THE NUKBER OF ATOMIC BOLBS EQUIVALENT TO THs LAST WAR AIR ATTACKS ON GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY
Summary
During the last war, a total of 1,300,000 tons*® of bomb
on Germany by the Strategic Air Forces, if there were no paboweign tall accuracy, then to achieve the same total amount of material damage (to houses, industrial and transportation targets, etc.) would have required the use of over 300 atomic bonbs together with some 500,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs for targets too small to warrant the use of an atomic bomb. Increases in accuracy could cause a suhatantial waduatt
Above: the Top Secret 1950 British Home Office Scientific Advisory Branch report, The Number of Atomic Bombs Equivalent to the Last War Air Attacks on Great Britain and Germany, was written by the World War Il bomb damage Home Office civil defence experts including Frank H. Pavry, who went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 on the British Mission to Japan. The 1950 pointed out the exaggerations of nuclear weapons effects in the popular media and calculated that the 1.3 megatons of small convention- al weapons dropped on Germany were equivalent to over 300 nuclear weapons of 20 kf yield or 300(20/1000)?/* = 22 nuclear weapons of 1 megaton yield, because of the wide distribution of targets. The non-linear scaling of nuclear weapons effects with energy yield causes the popular media fo falsely dismiss civil defence by asserting that a single megaton nuclear weapon would duplicate German's bomb destruction in World War Il.
oa = > oe 2 Ge’ , pos ae eee ate ie A
——— * na a —- = = Above: British Mission to Japan report, 1946, Fig. 18: “small earth-covered back yard shelter with crude wooden frame,” within 100 yards of ground zero, Nagasaki. “There
was a large number of such shelters ... only half were damaged at 300 yards ...”
t-
~ *5 rx 3 ~S-e =< - ra
Above: British Mission to Japan report, 1946, Fig. 17: “part below ground, earth-cov- ered timber framed shelter,” survived just 300 yards from ground zero in Hiroshima.
cat
dasha pls
Sige “pe
va © GROUND,
Above: U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey photos of Hiroshima. able. The Sire damage to wooden houses was not instant, but occurred
Even the closest bridge, south west from ground zero, remained service- 30 minutes to 3 hours afterwards (after most survivors had evacuated).
Hiroshima
DIRECT EFFECTS OF 1 MT SURFACE BURST
LIGHT DAMAGE TO COMMERCIAL-TYPE BUILDINGS - MODERATE DAMAGE TO SMALL RESIDENCES | ETI LA RG Bee Pino,
“™~!, PERCENT OF PEOPLE
DEAD HURT SAFE
; | oo a Co %.
Left: the 1973 U.S. Department of Defense DCPA Aftack Environment Manual provided this casualty-versus-peak over- pressure analysis, associating the 5-12 psi peak overpressure
uonenin Kako’ 6 COMICAL. Ss zone with 50 mortality, without
TYPE BUILDINGS, SEVERE DAMAGE TO gS 100 Source references. It was used SMALL RESIDENCES My ae grossly deceptive exaggeration,
‘ 4 0-1 PSI ignoring civil defence effectiveness by
SEVERE DAMAGE TO %. 25 75 % the 1979 U. S. Office of
iepaseaeiy scsi Se | % Technology Assessment study, ie 1-2 PSI * og The Effects of Nuclear War.
= rine a ao Deceptions were excluded
OF ALL EXCEPT SPECIALLY 5040 10% 2-5 Psi potent! : from public scrutiny, debate
DESIGNED FACILTIES 9g 9 5-12 PSI % TRITIATED and analysis by deliberately
See tee anne Hee assigning reports secret and/or RADIUS 0.7 MILE OVER 12 PSI ; a <a Oe. melee mae ce
, Semi Ash S. limited distribution” (ostensi-
CRATER DIAM. 0.24 MILE | Pd
BANK OF JAPAN, HIROSHIMA (BUILDING 24)
=
GEIBI BANK COMPANY, HIROSHIMA (BUILDING 18
7 MILES Ply to keep st from Moscow).
Leff: 30% of 100 people survived inside the concrete Bank of Japan (building 24 in Hiroshima, in the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report) at a peak over- pressure of 18 psi, just 390 metres from ground zero in Hiroshima, was well inside the “firestorm” area, and only 7.5 m from the nearest burning building. A second floor fire due to a firebrand blown through a broken window was extn- guished by the survivors using water fire buckets at 1.5 hours after the nuclear explosion.
The unoccupied third floor later suffered a similar ignition which was discovered too late to extinguish and burned without spread to lower floors. (Source: DCPA Altack Environment Manual, Chapter 3, Panel 26, 1973. The U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report shows that it had 12 inch thick reinforced concrete walls and 20 inches of sand on the roof.)
Leff: the Geibi Bank building (building 18) survived 8 psi peak overpressure at 293 metres from ground zero in Hiroshima, again inside the “firestorm” area. It survived fire completely, fire- brands blown in through first and third floor broken windows at 2.25 hours after the explosion ignited curtains and furni- ture but these fires were extinguished by survivors using water fire buckets. (U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report shows that it had 10 inch thick reinforced con-
Hiroshima
6
1947 TEXAS CITY DISASTER, 0.67 KT NUCLEAR EQUIVALENT SURFACE BURST George V. LeRoy, Jack D. Rosenbaum, Averill A. Liebow, B. Aubrey Schneider, and E. Cuyler Hammond,
POPULATION UNWARNED TO EXPLOSION RISK, DESPITE FIRE ON SHIP Statistical Analysis of the Medical Effects of the Atomic Bombs. USAEC TID-5252 (1955), p. 269, Fig. 8H. PERSONNEL LOCATIONS SESH Zee EU. NRC - NONSEISMIC REINFORCED CONCRETE sti OU - OUTSIDE UNSHIELDED (NO HEAT FLASH) |: HSF - HEAVY STEEL FRAME OS - OUTSIDE SHIELDED (FLYING DEBRIS)
LSF - LIGHT STEEL FRAME H 60 eee eee WOOD FRAME DWELLING /
« Purpura (leakage of small blood vessels in skin to cause small dark colored spots, 4 while platelets are too few to clot leaks)
Note: both effects are only temporary
% OF SURVIVORS
2 Incidence of radiation sickness symptoms in 1 Hiroshima survivors
8 10 15 oy oor i 7 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 PEAK OVERPRESSURE, PSI TIME OF ONSET OF SYMPTOMS AFTER NUCLEAR EXPLOSION (DAYS)
Above: casualty risks in the unwarned population from blast mal effects were trivial, people in the open were safer than those effects in typical kinds of American city building were firmly estab- behind objects, due to the flying debris. Acute radiation syn- lished after the 16 April 1947 Texas City Disaster. Because the ther- drome affected fewer than 5% of the survivors of Hiroshima.
eanrineint FIGURE 5-2 SaaS
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY TECHNICAL MANUAL TM 23-200
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY OPNAV INSTRUCTION 03400.18 Thermal effects: ea CEPORIOER OF THE ANS FORE AFL 136-1 Second degree bare skin burn... 4 5.1 9.1 MARINE CORPS PUBLICATIONS NAVME 1104 REV ' wh iT
Table 6-2. Critical Radiant Exposures for Burns Under
CAPABILITIES Clothing
(Expressed in cal/em? incident on outer surface of cloth)
OF . Clothing Burn 1KT | 100 KT | 10 MT
ATOMIC WEAP ONS (U) Summer Uniform........-. ba 8 11 14 eh, ee ee 2° 20 25 35
Winter: Uniform sacscececcs 1° 60 80 100
2, | 2° 70 90 120
Note. These values are sensitively dependent upon many variables which ey are not easily defined (see text), and are probably correct within a factor of two.
SrENTAL
Table 6-5. Dose Transmission Factors (Interior Dose/Exterior Dose)
Gamma rays
DEPARTMENTS OF THE ARMY, THE NAVY Geometry | Neutrons AND THE AIR FORCE — —— REVISED EDITION NOVEMBER 1957 Forholes ”,.........ccscccccccncececccecennnes 0.05-0.10 | ——-0.02-0.10 03 CONTIBENTIAL > No line-of-sight radiation received. “A few secondary burns resulted from primary flaming of clothing skin.” - U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Medical Division, The
but many people reported such instances in which they were able Effects of Atomic Bombs on Health and Medical Services in to beat the fires out without sustaining burns of the underlying Hiroshima and Nagasaki, March 1947, page 25.
Right: flash burns only occurred in an unobstructed radial line from the fireball, giving window area burns to chairs at 1 mile in Hiroshima, and fence “shadows” on scorched poles at 1.17 mile from ground zero
in Nagasaki.
Hiroshima
Right: very limited burn areas, under the dark patterns of a tight, single-layer Kimono dress, Hiroshima. Figs. 28 and 29 in Dirkwood Corp. report DC-FR-1054 show that the average unshielded lightly clothed person outdoors in Nagasaki had 2nd to 3rd degree (blis- tering to charring) burns to 20% of the body area at 1.86 km, killing 10%. At 1.37 km, the stronger flash heated clothing more, and 2nd to 3rd degree flash burns occurred fo an average of 38% of body area for personnel unshielded outdoors, killing 50%. The U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey's Medical Division report, The Effects of Atomic Bombs on Health and Medical Services in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (March 1947) explains these facts about burns victims:
Pages 24-27: “The fires particularly in Hiroshima apparently built up more slowly than has been encountered in cities that were sub- jected to heavy incendiary raids. This gave persons more time to escape from the damaged or demolished buildings. ... A few sec- ondary burns resulted from primary flaming of clothing but many people reported such instances in which they were able to beat the fires out without sustaining burns of the underlying skin. ... Generally speaking, the thicker the clothing was the more likely it was to give complete protection against flash burns. ... There were many instances where skin was burned beneath tightly fitted clothing, but was unburned beneath loosely fitted portions.” <
Page 43: “The Joint Commission studied a group of 580 workmen + in Hiroshima who were marching across the Koi Bridge facing the “4 bomb at a distance of 7,500 feet. All were burned with the excep- &
tion of three at the rear who were protected by the eaves of a ’ building.” The British Mission to Japan report, The Effects of the — Atomic Bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1946, discusses that . ; group of workmen on page 13, stating that 9 out of the 580(1.55%) -« ee were killed by the serious flash burns at that distance (2.3 km). »
Above: U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report photos of profile region was covered by clothing. Flash ignited clothing was beat- burns to a Hiroshima soldier, illustrating protection afforded en out and rolled out, unlike the contrived false “examples” of against thermal flash burns by a cap and shirt at 1.98 km (1.23 gasoline-soaked peacetime automobile accident burns, used by miles) from ground zero. The unburned area below the neck _ civil defence “critic” liars to supposedly “disprove” civil defense.
Hiroshima
rin ® "H" indicates Head of Dummy 4 "F" indicates Feet of Oummy S ta] - - H o TIME, SECONDS ET blo. s \2 \os hm of y 35 mad 45 2 i ~~ SS. ae . ssa he o a PATH OF = i 6 CENTER OF GRAVITY wat Mecsured hy ~S.PATH OF FREE- he oe FALLING BODY F ie \
Above: in blast displacements the head impacts the ground
vertically, it does not hit an obstruction at the peak horizon-
tal velocity. The significance of this fact is that the overall
effect is like a fall, albeit taking much longer than gravitation takes because of the hydrodynamic aerofoil lift (where the
Guinea Pig 4
Rabbit oO
Dog bf Lise Goat ° es
(All orientations of animals) al
V6 ) , ft/sec
165 m(ib)
o, =0.04857 o, (%)=I1.2
Scaled Initial Velocity, Zo(
109,9{t($5) “+-o73976+0.61692 loo, fz, 88)"
20 40 50 100
Scaled Stopping Distance, s(85)", ft
experiments on animals.
B al” [s('s8y"| =-115822+1.61692 og, [25(185)"
n= 230 (47quinea pigs, GOrabbits, 48goats, 75 dogs)
150 200 300 «6-400 500
back is sloping into the blast wind for the first 0.5 second, like an aerofoil). The extra half second of aerodynamic lift gives sufficientreaction time for people to us their arms to protect their heads from the vertical impact. This explains the high survival rate in the Mach stem region at Hiroshima.
NUMBER OF ABDOMINAL WALL PENETRATIONS BY GLASS FRAGMENTS
CLOTHED SHEEP 2 METRES BEHIND 0.83 m2
UNCLOTHED SHEEP 2 METRES BEHIND
0.83 m2 WINDOW WINDOW
“ UNCLOTHED SHEEP CLOTHED SHEEP af. 2 METRES BEHIND 2 METRES BEHIND 2.5 m2 WINDOW 2.5 m2 WINDOW
4 10
40 Le) 4 10
4 100 PEAK REFLECTED OVERPRESSURE ON WINDOW, kPa
DASA-1859 Source: DNA-5593T (ADA105824), 1980, Fig. 17. (1 PSI = 6.9 kPa.) Above: the tumbling distances from blast displacement and the protective quality of clothing in preventing most serious injuries from flying glass fragments are established from At the 400 kt 12 August 1953
Russian nuclear test, 100% (all 6 animals) exposed outdoors on open ground to 8-10 cal/cm? survived all the effects, and only 11% (3 of 27) were killed outdoors at 15-26 cal/cm? (13 of the 27 had radiation sickness): DTRA-TR-07-38.
Relation Between Overpressure and Missile Parameters
Max Velocity ft/sec Mass, gms Max missile pressure Type of geometric geometric density
psi missile mean range mean range No/sq ft
1.9 Window glass 108 50-178 1.45 0.03-10 0.4
+ 8 Window glass 168 60-310 0.58 0.01-10 159
5.0 Window glass 170 50-400 B.i3 0.002-140 388
Above: Dr Clayton S. White’s nuclear test data in his June 1959 tes- timony to U. S. Congressional hearings on The Biological and Environmental Effects of Nuclear War, page 331. lincreasing the peak overpressure of the blast wave has a small effect on the mean speed of glass fragments, buf causes a larger fall in their mean mass, because the blast breaks the window up into a very fine “powder” at higher overpressures. Smaller fragments have less momentum and less penetrating power at very high overpres- sures, and can be easily stopped by clothing or even the skin sur- face. White testified on page 330: “a 10 gram glass fragment, hav-
ing a velocity of 115 ft/sec has only a 1 percent probability of tra- versing the abdominal wall ... clothing will degrade the velocity...” Report DASA-1341 calculates a maximum distance for skin lacer- ations by 50 ft/sec, 10 gram flying glass fragments (acceleration coefficient 0.72 sq. ft/Ib) of 7 miles from a 1 Mt surface burst. “At 25 degrees from the edge of a window pane, the density of glass
fragments is approximately one-tenth the density of fragments
measured directly behind the window.” - M. K. Drake, ef al., Collateral Damage, Science Applications, Inc., Defense Nuclear
Agency report DNA 4734Z (ADA071371), 1978, page 5-86.
Hiroshima Th e Eff e c ts O f aa PROTECTION OF PERSONNEL | , fi: after the
first Russian nuclear test of 1949. American
government
Atomic Weapons
MODERATE BLAST
PREPARED FOR AND IN COOPERATION WITH THE U. S. DEPARTMENT OF — agencies pub- . 8S. ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION i
DEFENSE AND THE U. S. A cal lished The Effects
Under the direction of the A | ——
LOS ALAMOS SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY Weapons in 1950.
Los Atamos, New Mexico The book pre-
dicted the effects of air burst
Weapons (up to 200 kt). It failed
to analyze the
OISTANCE '— (ft) Sen SR
NGnNe SERRE
mechanism of
the Hiroshima firestorm or the relationship between blast damage to build- ings and casual-
BOARD OF EDITORS
J. O. Hiascurexper, Chairman Davin B. Parxer ties, giving no i Pe es eae ot . a i 1 J, solid analysis of ENERGY (kilotons TNT EQUIVALENT } the effectiveness
NT aa Beek tke Viet een ee eee Sa Eitan, The Effects of “ ar ha ie Ee
first Russian
20,000 megaton yield
Nuclear Weapons ws ait-droppedH- pate 7 bomb test of
1955, American government agencies pub- lished The Effects of Nuclear Weapons in 1957. It severely exag-
gerated effects of blast and thermal flash burns and fires, predicting fires and 2nd degree bare skin burns at 30 miles
from a 20 Mt air burst. The firestorm igni-
Prepared by the . UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
r | Up I / ) Published by the 2 7 f UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION e/a 1 [ t) 0.2 04 07
tion analysis
June 1957 omitted vital eye-
DISTANCE, FROM GROUND ZERO GALES) witness evidence
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office Figure 12.13. Limiting distances from ground zero at which various effects are from Hiroshima. Washington 25, D.C. - Price $2.00 (paper bound) produced, in an air burst.
Above: the key failure of The Effects of Ajomic Weapons and also (when in fact 100% survival was possible in the “severely The Effects of Nuclear Weapons to address widespread decep- destroyed” buildings, burned down 2-3 hours after the nuclear tions over thermal radiation burns casualties are due to the false- explosion by the firestorm, long after the survivors had evacuat- hood that building damage at Hiroshima correlated to casualties ed). Their ranges for bare skin flash burns only apply to nudists.
nirosnima
uw 3: 100 Bombing Survey,
Medical Division, 90 The Effects of
Atomic Bombs on 80 Health and Medical Services in
and Nagasaki, March
Strategic
Hiroshima
a a = 1947, page 25: * 60 Oo ac “A few secondary os 50 burns resulted zg on prima) = 40 flaming of cloth- > ing but many peo- & - ple reported such ®
instances in which they were 20 able to beat the fires out without 10 sustaming burns of the underlying skin.” 0
Dr Clayton S. White, M.D. (DASA-1271, 1961, pp. 32-36):
“The area of [destruction to wooden houses at Hiroshima, was] about 1.2 mile radius, a range at which 4-5 psi existed. At this range there was an overall survival of near 90 per- cent. ... one must not confuse the area of complete destruc-
tion of houses ... with ‘complete destruction’ of people. ...
“The gloomy habit of confusing the two concepts is, I am afraid, as prevalent as it is unrealistic and, indeed, untrue. ... Think of the differences in casualties which might have occurred in Hiroshima had the population just been mostly indoors.”
Samuel Glasstone and Philip J. Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, U. S. Department of Defense, 3rd ed., 1977, para- graphs 12.14, 12.17, and 12.22, pages 545-7: “The high inci- dence of flash burns caused by thermal radiation among both fatalities and survivors in Japan was undoubtedly relat- ed to the light and scanty clothing being worn, because of
Right: flash burns only occurred in an unobstructed radial line from the fireball, proved by window out- line scorches to chairs 1.0 mile from ground zero in Hiroshima, and by the fence “shadows” on scorched poles at 1.17 mile in Nagasaki.
0.5 1.0 RANGE, MILES
DASA-1271
PERCENTAGE OF SURVIVORS AS A FUNCTION OF RANGE FROM GROUND ZERO (HIROSHIMA)
REF JOINT COMMISSION REPORT, VOL WI DOCUMENT NP-304!
JOINT COMMISSION DATA FOR OVERALL SURVIVAL
"UNSHIELDED" SCHOOL PERSONNEL "SHIELDED" SCHOOL PERSONNEL EXPOSED INSIDE CONCRETE BUILDINGS INT BUILDING NO. INDIVIDUALS
NO. DESIGNATION EXPOSED | POST OFFICE 400 2 TELEGRAPH OFFICE 301 3 TELEPHONE OFFICE 474 4 CITY HALL 216 5 COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE 682 6 BRANCH POST OFFICE 346 7 PO. SAVINGS OFFICE 750
1.5 2.0 2.5
the warm summer weather ... If there had been an appre- ciable cloud cover or haze below the burst point, the ther- mal radiation would have been attenuated somewhat and the frequency of flash burns would have been much less. Had the weather been cold, fewer people would have been out- doors and they would have been wearing more extensive clothing. Both the number of people and individual skin areas exposed to thermal radiation would then have been greatly reduced, and there would have been fewer casualties from flash burns. ... The death rate in Japan was greatest among individuals who were in the open at the time of the explosions; it was less for persons in residential (wood- frame and plaster) structures and least of all for those in concrete buildings. These facts emphasize the influence of circumstances of exposure on the casualties produced by a nuclear weapon and indicate that shielding of some type can be an important factor in survival. ... Had they been fore- warned and knowledgeable about areas of relative hazard and safety, there would probably have been fewer casualties
even in structures that were badly damaged.”
Hiroshima
For a month before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear
attacks on 6 and 9 of August 1945, weather aircraft were 100 sent over the cities daily to “accustom the Japanese to 90 seeing daytime flights of two or three bombers” (The
Tibbets Story, the autobiography of 509th nuclear bomb- 80 ing group commander, Hiroshima pilot Colonel Paul 70 Tibbets). B-29 weather aircraft preceded the nuclear B- 29 bomber. In Hiroshima the air-raid warning sounded at 7 am, and the all-clear at 7:30 am, but the bomb was dropped at 8:09 am. Thousands cooked breakfasts on charcoal braziers in wooden homes. In Nagasaki, the air-raid sounded at 7:50 am but was cleared before the bomb fell.
% KILLED
Bease | [e3 3 3 é . ° . 3 =z 3 3
The secret May 1947 U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey
Ny \350 0
MORTALITY FROM 0-100 DAYS
= Source: Oughterson & Warren, 1956, p. 103
COVERED EXPOSED KM %KILLED % KILLED
0.50 60.5 93.7 19.2 85.3 14.2 83.7
2.5 14.5 0.5
EXPOSED
SAMPLE = 3,131 PEOPLE
coverep \____\
SAMPLE = 11,884 PEOPLE sy
report 92 on Hiroshima reveals the facts on pages 4-6: 10 ies. “Six persons who had been in reinforced-concrete 0
buildings within 3,200 feet [975 m] of air zero stated that 0 black cotton black-out curtains were ignited by flash heat. ... A large proportion of over 1,000 persons ques- tioned was, however, in agreement that a great majori- ty of the original fires were started by debris falling on kitchen charcoal fires. ... There had been practically no rain in the city for about 3 weeks. ... There were no auto- matic sprinkler systems in building. ...”
The secret June 1947 U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey report 93 on Nagasaki states (v. 1, p. 10): “... the raid alarm was not given ... until 7 minutes after the atomic bomb ... less than 400 persons were in the tunnel shelters which had capacities totalling approximately 70,000.”
MEDICAL EFFECTS OF ATOMIC BOMBS
The Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan; Volume VI
By
Ashley W. Oughterson Henry L. Barnett George V. LeRoy Averill A. Liebow E. Cuyler Hammond
Jack D. Rosenbaum B. Aubrey Schneider
— STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
Technical Information Service, Ock Ridge, Tennessee
RESTRICTED
Above: 15,015 Hiroshima children were outdoors at known loca- tions in patriotic work parties at 8:15am on 6 August 1945, clearing firebreak areas in overcrowded wooden housing, fo try to prevent a firestorm occurring in anticipated incendiary air-raids. The data below is from Figures 9 and 10 in the report by Ashley W. Oughterson, et al., Medical Effects of Atomic Bombs: The Report of the Joint Commission for the Investigation of the Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan, Volume VI, U. S. Army Institute of Pathology, NP-3041, 1951.
At 0-1, 1-1.5, 1.5-2, and 2-3 km, mortality rates of 93.7, 85.3, 83.7, and 14.5% existed outdoors, but those shielded from the thermal flash had mortality rates of only 60.5, 19.2, 14.2, and 2.5% respec- tively (the firestorm developed between 30 minutes fo 3 hours after burst, allowing time fo escape if). Hence, shadowing in the four zones at 0-1, 1-1.5, 1.5-2, and 3-4 km gave mortality “protective factors” of 1.55, 4.44, 5.89 and 5.80, respectively. Since areas are proportional to the square of fhe radius, the higher protection fac-
Hiroshima were ideal for a conflagration.
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 GROUND RANGE, KM
Above: data on survival for 15,015 Hiroshima work party children, from Dr Ashley Oughterson and Dr Shields Warren’s book, Medical Effects of the Atomic Bomb in Japan (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1956, page 103). This graph shows that shadowing saved many lives. They noted the fire risk in Hiroshima on page 17: “Conditions in
Thousands of wooden
dwellings and shops were crowded together along narrow streets and
were filled with combustible material.”
DISTRIBUTION OF WORK PARTIES
*
tors predominate in overall casualty calculations, since the area of the 1-1.5 km “shell” zone exceeds that of the 0-1 km zone, and the area of the 1.5-2 km “shell” zone is much larger.
The areas covered between the inner and outer radii limits of each of the four zones (0-1, 1-1.5, 1.5-2, and 3-4 km) is x(a? - b?), where a and b are the outer and inner radii of the zone, respectively, giv- ing 3.14, 3.93, 5.50 and 15.7 square kilometres. Thus, if the distribu- tion of the pre-attack population without shielding is uniformly n . persons per square kilometre, the number killed outdoors within 3 km is 13.2n personnel, compared fo just 3.83n personnel for fhose with shadow protection from the fireball’s thermal radiation. So the overall shadow protective factor for mortality in randomly distrib- uted people within 3 km of ground zero in Hiroshima was 13.2n/(3.83n) = 3.44, reducing the unshielded death risk in Hiroshima fo just 29%, for people shadowed from the fireball’s ther- mal radiation flash by a tree, fence, clothing, building, vehicle, bridge, tunnel, or hill.
Hiroshima
ot "=< . Be eae ant } ti See
Above: Nagasaki before and after the 9 August 1945 nuclear attack. Buildings 16 and 18 are surviving but damaged Shiroyama and Chinzei schools, respectively, 500 metres west and south west of ground zero. In 1990, R. L. Stohler of Kaman Sciences Corp. used data on case histories of students on different floors inside these two Nagasaki schools to determine the 50% lethal dose (LD50) of initial nuclear radiation, including blast and thermal burn
——_ ‘ ° >
a.
t
~. Jat) synergisms: the LD50 is 412 cGy in air/295 cGy in the bone marrow for casualties with either nuclear radiation plus blast injury or only nuclear radiation, and 397 cGy in air/279 cGy in bone marrow for nuclear radiation in combination with thermal burns (report DNA- TR-87-173, ADA219691). This synergism is due to the later infection of wounds, which was worse in Hiroshima’s hospitals than in Nagasaki's. Hills “shielded” the south east homes from firebrands.
oR i
Above: Nagasaki's “blast walls,” made of pre-cast concrete (left) and earth-filled wooden planks (right). The idea of a blast wall is to shield flying debris and hurri- cane-strength blast winds. The blast wall base is wider than the top, to prevent overturning for the blast load design specification. These simple blast walls pro- tected machinery at 0.85 mile from ground zero, Nagasaki. The photographs of simple and effective protection were published in Figure 12.37 of the June 1957 edition of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, but were not included in later editions.
A a's se > ~ CZ ~ ng! Above: a typical multistorey steel-frame building surviving structurally intact at 0.85 mile from ground zero in Nagasaki. The surrounding wooden build- ings collapsed and were burned by fires.
~ —_
LA-14066-H History
Tracing the Origins of the W76: 1966-Spring 1973 (U)
Betty L. Perkins
November 3, 2003
7. Yield: The Confetti Argument
Agnew felt that the yield of the W68 was too low to be really effective. In addition, in terms of the overall total yield available from all the W68 warheads, the W68 design was very costly in terms of the amount of required special nuclear materials.
In an April 1972 TWX to Assistant Director for Safety and Liaison (Division of Military
_ Application) Colonel Robert T. Duff, Agnew reported that he was worried about maintaining the
U.S. nuclear deterrent. Agnew noted, “It occurs to me that as we go to lower and lower yields in our strategic missile warheads and the Soviet Union builds up a better and better civil defense position, the reality of this deterrent may become questionable. (b)(3) ‘If the Soviet leadership believes
“This, then our strategic deterrent Will have tost a-gooddeal of its force. If our MIRV trend
continues we’ll be threatening to throw confetti at a potential aggressor. Confetti has high penetration and survivability but little deterrent power.”
In a letter dated October 10, 1972, to Giller, at that time Assistant General Manager for National Security, Agnew again noted several reasons why low yield warheads might not be the best solution for maximizing the deterrence capability of the stockpile. He reported that considering the number of required submarines and the low efficiency in their use of special nuclear material, the low-yield warheads were not very cost effective. Moreover, Agnew pointed out that for the Hiroshima device, the effects on Hiroshima in terms of loss of substantial buildings and the people in them “wasn’t all that impressive.” In terms of loss of life, the USSR had lost more than ten million people in WWIL Although the Soviets had an extensive civil- defense network in place, even if that did not work to reduce loss of civilian lives, the Soviets might not mind losing a few people. Agnew wrote, “Again, to me, to continue to increase warhead numbers at the cost of a decrease in yield per warhead could eventually lead to no deterrence in the minds of those we hope to deter.” Agnew stated, “I feel very strongly that we should endeavor to convince the DoD that what they should have on the next round is a mix of yields.
*'H. M. Agnew, University of California, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. to BY3/Colonel Robert T. Duff, USAF, Assistant Director for Safety and Liaison, Division of Military Application USAEC, Wash., D.C. (SRD) (April 14, 1972), pp. 1-2, B11, Drawer 56, Folder 1 of 4.
(b)(3)
LA-14066-H AAR AOL VI-69
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HOW MAN COMES BACK TO H
The first atom bomb to be dropped in anger fell on Hiroshima on August 6 last year. But already a new Hiroshima is rising.
in any other single moment of time.
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IROSHIMA: New Homes Arise in the Bomb Devastation
The death and destruction caused was greater than any that had happened Colonies of wooden hutment houses are being built to house the homeless.
August 24, 1946
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AFTER THE ATOM BOMB: AN ASTONISHING REBIRTH
The atom bomb lives up to all expectations in its immediate destruc- tiveness. The scientists’ predictions of the after effects of its explosion, however, have been dismally—or perhaps hopefully—wide of the mark.
HAT would happen to Hiroshima
and Nagasaki on the days when the atom bombs dropped was not a matter for speculation. The diabolical thing had been tried out; the range and completeness of its destructive powers were known. Most people’s hatred of the idea of indiscriminate slaughter was assuaged by a hope that in a few seconds of time the new form of warfare would end the war and prevent months of prolonged struggle. Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered wounds which were mortal to the Japanese Empire. That much was expected, that much achieved,
On the long-term effects of the radioactivity released, the scientists had a field day of speculation. With various degrees of cer- tainty they predicted that all life—animal and vegetable—would be impossible for many years on the scorched and acrid desert left
by the explosions. Their predictions have proved false. They underestimated the resistance of both Man and Nature. The houses rise again in the two bombed cities. The earth, which was expected to become sterile, now blossoms and bears fruit. Does this mean that we had been unduly terrified by the prospects of atomic warfare? Not at all. The killing and the maiming of the population of whole cities will be as extensive as ever the scientists calculated. Some kinds of civilisation may perish if ever the bomb is used again in full-scale war. But results so far seen show very definitely that the world will survive. Odd men will crawl out of spectacular immunity to build again, as best they know how, and food and flowers will defy all science’s efforts at destruction. The atom bomb is not the Last Weapon after all. That may or may not be a source of consolation.
r. ws HOW NATURE COMES BACK TO NAGASAKI In the shadow of wreckage caused by the second atom bomb,
crops thrive in the hutment gardens in denial of the scientists predictions that growth would be impossible for many years: J