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Depleted Uranium Weaponry

Lynx2174 said:
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isn't tungsten dust (ie, perhaps from hitting an enemy tank with a tungsten AP flechette) a possible carcinogen? even if not, would not it also carry the risk of heavy metal poisioning? or is it too light a metal. as element 74, it's lighter than lead.
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Actually, tungsten is a lot heavier than lead coming in a tad over 19g/cc as opposed to 11g/cc for lead. Uranium is close to but less dense than W or Pb coming in just a hair under 19.
 
marting said:
Actually, tungsten is a lot heavier than lead coming in a tad over 19g/cc as opposed to 11g/cc for lead. Uranium is close to but less dense than W or Pb coming in just a hair under 19.
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In fact, tungsten's density is 19.3 g/cm^3, which is exactly the same as that of gold. Thus it makes the ideal metal for making gold-plated jewelry that you claim is pure gold in order to fool your ladyfriend. ;)

I think the issue with toxicity may not be so much the density of the heavy metal in question, but its atomic weight. Going by atomic weight, tungsten is lighter than lead and much lighter than uranium.
 
tracer said:
In fact, tungsten's density is 19.3 g/cm^3, which is exactly the same as that of gold. Thus it makes the ideal metal for making gold-plated jewelry that you claim is pure gold in order to fool your ladyfriend. ;)

I think the issue with toxicity may not be so much the density of the heavy metal in question, but its atomic weight. Going by atomic weight, tungsten is lighter than lead and much lighter than uranium.
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Be, (At. No. 4) is known for it's toxicity, yet is a key part of most amorphous metals being considered for replacing DU penetrators. Gold is pretty inert, the leaf has been used as decorative food additives.
 
marting said:
Actually, tungsten is a lot heavier than lead coming in a tad over 19g/cc as opposed to 11g/cc for lead. Uranium is close to but less dense than W or Pb coming in just a hair under 19.
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by heavy, I didn't mean by density. I meant that tungsten, W has an atomic weight of 183.84 while lead is 207.2 and uranium is 238. so now I know that even though it's up there in atomic weight, tungsten has low toxicity.

heavy metal in my experience referrs to one with a high atomic weight, not one with a high absolute density. though they often go hand in hand. whatever.

besides hardness, isn't there other issues that make something sutable for performance. I know that uranium ablates and is thus self-sharpening. does tungsten carbide do this? I remember hearing somewhere that the german army was switching to a 55 caliber (in length, not in inches of bore size) gun on their leopard 2 tanks because it has more power, compensating for the fact that the german army doesn't use DU rounds.

I'm pretty sure the US uses it because during the cold war, the world's largest producer of tungsten was the soviet union. and with all that uranium lying about, why not?
 
Lynx2174 said:
by heavy, I didn't mean by density. I meant that tungsten, W has an atomic weight of 183.84 while lead is 207.2 and uranium is 238. so now I know that even though it's up there in atomic weight, tungsten has low toxicity.

heavy metal in my experience referrs to one with a high atomic weight, not one with a high absolute density. though they often go hand in hand. whatever.

besides hardness, isn't there other issues that make something sutable for performance. I know that uranium ablates and is thus self-sharpening. does tungsten carbide do this? I remember hearing somewhere that the german army was switching to a 55 caliber (in length, not in inches of bore size) gun on their leopard 2 tanks because it has more power, compensating for the fact that the german army doesn't use DU rounds.

I'm pretty sure the US uses it because during the cold war, the world's largest producer of tungsten was the soviet union. and with all that uranium lying about, why not?
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As this discussion has toggled from DU toxicity to penetrators I guess "weight" can easily acquire either meaning. Even Wikipedia lists "heavy_metals" as being both at the upper end of the table and having a density greater than 4.

Yes. The US is a major user of DU, both for offensive weapons and in active armour on tanks and such.
 
Lynx2174 said:
besides hardness, isn't there other issues that make something sutable for performance. I know that uranium ablates and is thus self-sharpening. does tungsten carbide do this? I remember hearing somewhere that the german army was switching to a 55 caliber (in length, not in inches of bore size) gun on their leopard 2 tanks because it has more power, compensating for the fact that the german army doesn't use DU rounds.
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Correct; the Leo 2 was originally equipped with a 120mm L44 gun, and the upgrade to L2A6 included replacing it with a L55 gun. The barrel length indicators, by the way, relate to caliber; "L55" means "55 calibers long," in this case 55 x 120mm = 6600mm (6.6 meters). Mind you, again, the idea of increasing the barrel length predates the end of the Cold War.
I think you're also right about the self-sharpening bit.
Lynx2174 said:
I'm pretty sure the US uses it because during the cold war, the world's largest producer of tungsten was the soviet union. and with all that uranium lying about, why not?
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The Russian Federation stil is the biggest producer of tungsten, so yeah, it figures that the US would have operated on the assumption (erring on the side of caution) that the Sovs would make good use of it, meaning the US needed something better than tungsten.

And make no mistake, I'm not contending that tungsten carbide isn't inferior, from a purely military point of view, to DU. What I'm suggesting is that WC is adequate for any job the forces of any NATO member state might have to undertake in the foreseeable future. After all, the most serious AFV threats the US has faced off against since 1989 have been Iraqi T-72s and Yugoslav M-84s, and the Chechens showed in 1994-95 that you don't need DU to take out the Russian T-80 in large numbers. The Russian T-90 is simply a T-72 variant (renamed after the 1991 Gulf War created the association of "burning hulk" with the name "T-72" in the minds of every prospective buyer), and even the most advanced Chinese and Iranian models are also essentially T-72 variants. So what I'm suggesting is that, from a public relations standpoint, it might be a good move if the US and UK put their DU munitions in storage for the time being and went back to using WC rounds until and unless some potential enemy develops a tank agaisnt which DU might not be overkill.

May I add, incidentally, that given the hysteria one usually encounters in discussions regarding DU, the level-headedness in this thread has been a breath of fresh air.
 
Euromutt said:
The Russian T-90 is simply a T-72 variant (renamed after the 1991 Gulf War created the association of "burning hulk" with the name "T-72" in the minds of every prospective buyer), and even the most advanced Chinese and Iranian models are also essentially T-72 variants.
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To be fair judgeing by friendly fire incerdents none of the western tanks can stand up to their anti tank rounds either.
 
A couple of nitpicks.

Rickover did not drink reactor coolant, he drank controlled pure water, which is purified reactor coolant and has only minor quantities of tritium.



Actually it is legally called source material per the government people who regulate the use of radioactive materials, at least until you legally transfer the source material to the person driving the T-72.


http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/radiation/reg-matls.html

And they do regulate the gas diffusion plants where the stuff is made and they make a huge distinction between the radiological dangers of the stuff laying around and airborne.

ie, they dont care if you loose 3 kg of U-238 but they expect you to use respiratory protection if the air concentration is 3 * 10 ^ -10 uci/ml which puts it in the parts per billion range in air

So its fine anywhere but in the air

Anyhow it is well established that alpha particles inside the body can cause cancer. And it only takes one to damage a cell enough that the cell becomes cancerous and two will almost always kill the cell.

the latest information on smoking and lung and bladder cancer implicate Polonium as the cause as it is absorbed in the lung and excreted through the bladder. The radioactive alpha emitter that is found in cigarettes.
 
geni said:
To be fair judgeing by friendly fire incerdents none of the western tanks can stand up to their anti tank rounds either.
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That is being more than fair.

There were reports from the start of the current conflict stating that M2 Bradleys had been scoring kills on T-72's with their 25mm Bushmaster guns. (Turret hits to boot!) Granted they were also using DU sabot rounds. But the Bushmaster was not supposed to be able to kill a tank. That is what the TOW missles were for.
 
Doubt said:
There were reports from the start of the current conflict stating that M2 Bradleys had been scoring kills on T-72's with their 25mm Bushmaster guns. (Turret hits to boot!) Granted they were also using DU sabot rounds. But the Bushmaster was not supposed to be able to kill a tank. That is what the TOW missles were for.
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That's partly because the T-72s like those used in Iraq in the previous conflict, lacked full combat armour. The estimation was based on Russian Army T-72s with full combat plating, and possibly reactive armour as well.

As far as DU vs. Tungsten, IIRC the main reason that the switch was made was the considerably lower toxicity of Tungsten, and to a lesser extent, the lower long-term cost. DU supplies are limited, and the military is channeling more DU to armour instead of projectiles; since it's tendency to ablate rather than fracture makes it more effective against certain types of projectiles.

It's pretty much as effective as DU, despite the lack of the "self-sharpening" effect, due it's marginally higher density, which means that slightly smaller projectiles can be used, thus decreasing contact surface, increasing penetrability, and lowering material costs. Ultimately DU is the better material for kinetic penetrators; but the differences are so slight that there's no significant disadvantage to switching.
 
bobdroege7 said:
A couple of nitpicks.

Rickover did not drink reactor coolant, he drank controlled pure water, which is purified reactor coolant and has only minor quantities of tritium.
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Would that be primary or secondary water? My understanding was that he drank from primary water, which would be reactor coolant water.
 
The Snopes website has pictures of a sandstorm in Iraq. Here is the URL(the only way the system will allow me to post it :) )

snopes. com/ photos/ natural/ sandstorm.asp

With events like that going on in Iraq, it seems to me that there is a real possibility that we could be creating a situation that will affect the health of the Iraqis for years.

I do not have any experience with radiation, but everyone keeps saying that it's only dangerous if the U particles are inside your body. It seems likely to me that any U dust or smoke particles from an explosion or fire will not stay in the immediate area of the explosion or fire. And it looks like it is very possible that many people are inhaling or ingesting these particles.

Am I worrying for nothing?

What is the likelyhood that this dust or smoke will be carried on winds outside of Iraq? Will the concentration of particles be so sparse that their effects on health will not be distinguishable from normal cancer rates, etc?
 
Dali's Ghost, in 1999, UNEP conducted a preliminary assessment of the health effects of DU, and the results were paraphrased as follows:
The worst scenario envisaged in the preliminary assessment made in October 1999 by UNEP was inhalation (at the site and times of an explosion of a DU penetrator) of up to 100mg inhaled DU. The committed effective dose would correspond to a maximum of about 10 mSv (using the current ICRP models, and assuming ICRP default Type S absorption), and the highest organ dose calculated to be to the lungs, at about 80 mSv (for adults). [...] The resulting doses (internal or external) are unlikely to cause any deterministic effects, and are far below the minimal doses at which lung and lymph node fibrosis and leukocytopenia have been observed in animals. It is noted that organ doses fom DU inhalation are delivered at a very low rate, whereas deterministic effects appear rather for acute high doses.
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Ten mSv is roughly the amount of radiation you get from an abdomina CT scan. The long and short of it is that to run any radiological health risk, you have to make a frequent habit of standing next to tanks while they are being destroyed by DU munitions. A bit of dust being blown about really isn't going to do much of anything.
 
Thanks, Euromutt.

That information is definitely reassuring. In reading this thread, I was getting the impression that the health effects were overstated by some and I'm glad that's true.
 
thaiboxerken said:
Would that be primary or secondary water? My understanding was that he drank from primary water, which would be reactor coolant water.
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Yes it would be primary, with all the radioactive impurities removed except for some Tritium or the radioactive hydrogen isotope.

My opinion is that it was sort of a parlor trick where he did something that sounds dangerous but was really pretty safe.

If he had drank some unpurified reactor coolant straight from the cold leg then he would have had his radcon rangers following him for months collecting his outputs.
 
I don't know much about the details of the behavior of DU when it strikes a target. Does the DU dust pose a risk for physical damage of the lungs, akin to volcanosilicanosis, aside from its heavy metal risks? Also, if DU dust was in a person's lungs, would that pose an increased risk of cancer in those specific tissues?
 
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