Project Pre-Buggy. Emplacement and Firing of High-Explosive Charges and Crater Measurements

摘要

Six 1,000-pound high-explosive (HE) charges, each containing a capsule of radioactive tracer (Lanthanum 140), were detonated at depths varying from 15.0 to 21.4 feet in desert alluvium to permit selection of the optimum depth of burst commensurate with crater size and shape and radioactivity release. Using the burst depth thus selected, four row shots, consisting of five 1,000-pound HE charges in each row, were fired with intercharge spacing varying from 1.0 to 1.5 apparent crater radii to determine the optimum spacing to produce a channel of satisfactory size and proportion and relatively free of irregularities. The immediate purpose of the experiment was to aid in the design of a proposed nuclear row-charge event (Project Buggy).