Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security, 4 Volume Set

HIGH CONSEQUENCE THREATS: ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE

MICHAEL J. FRANKEL

EMP Commission, Washington, D.C.

1 INTRODUCTION

While the power of a nuclear weapon was seared into the world's psyche during the waning hours of WWII, nuclear scientists and defense specialists have long been aware that the potential for widespread destruction, devastation, and disorder as a consequence of nuclear detonation may exceed even that anticipated by the popular imagination. The locus of such assessment lies in their awareness of the full effects of a nuclear burst, effects not realized in the immediate and particular circumstances of the Japanese wartime experience.

When a nuclear warhead is detonated, the energy bound up in the rest mass of an atom is released. While a large fraction of this energy is originally in the form of radiation—x rays, γ rays, and neutrons—at low burst heights, much of this energy is converted to kinetic and thermal forms, as the atmosphere quickly absorbs the radiated energy, heats up, and launches an extraordinarily powerful blast wave that causes much of the immediate damage to any structures caught in its destructive path. Along with the familiar blast waves comes a veritable witch's brew of destructive insults; a thermal pulse that may ignite fires, along with broken gas lines, overturned stoves, etc., producing secondary fires that can propagate damage beyond the initial blast radius or even coalesce into a highly destructive firestorm, cratering, and ground shocks damaging ...