Production and characterization of synthetic urban nuclear melt glass

摘要

A method for producing realistic surrogate debris characteristic of those that would be expected to be found following a nuclear detonation in an urban environment is tested. The melt glass samples are benchmarked against synthetic trinitite via electron microscopy and X-ray diffractometry analysis. The surrogates produced proved to be similar to trinitite and synthetic nuclear melt glass, but showed differences indicative of the calculated precursor matrix for each city modeled. The synthetic debris produced may serve as a tool to advance and validate existing rapid nuclear forensic analysis methods.