Depleted Uranium Munitions

[Racoon]

So the United States is using depleted Uranium if their munitions, and apparently theres a controversy about the long term toxic effects of such practices...

 

Sure, its denser and makes for good armor piercing, but the residuals can contaminate.

 

Its a political problem, as well as a chemistry problem.

What do you think? is there conclusive evidence, or something that needs to be studied for decades?

 

Shouldn't the American military establishment ban such practices?

Is there a way to make better bullets and projectiles w/o depleted uranium?

 

Depleted Uranium (DU) is uranium remaining after removal of the isotope uranium-235. It is a waste product of the uranium enrichment process. It is primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238. Since depleted uranium contains less than one third as much uranium-235 and uranium-234 as natural uranium, it is weakly radioactive and an external radiation dose from depleted uranium is about 60% of that from the same mass of uranium with a natural isotopic ratio.

 

At standard temperature and pressure (STP) it is a very dense metal solid. Due to its high density the main uses of depleted uranium include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shields in medical radiation therapy machines and containers for the transport of radioactive materials. The military uses depleted uranium for defensive armor plate and its pyrophoricity has made it a valued component in other military applications, particularly in the form of armour-piercing projectiles.

 

Its use in ammunition is controversial because of its release into the environment. Besides its residual radioactivity, U-238 is a heavy metal whose compounds are known from laboratory studies to be toxic to mammals. The scientific data is not conclusive;

Depleted uranium - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Pretty much anything w/ Uranium in it, you wouldn't want sprinkled on your breakfast cereal :hihi:

 

 

Heres an interesting link --> Study rethinks uranium danger - Minnesota Daily

 

..... "The question represents the misinformation under which you have been propagandized," he said. "In other words, uranium, as with all radionuclides, is an irradiating substance which releases particles into the environment."

 

Weyman said that if radioactive material is inside the body, it immediately is doing damage at the cellular level.

 

"This is just fact," he said.

 

There shouldn't be differences drawn between uranium and depleted uranium, he said, because the effects are the same.

 

He said depleted uranium is 20 percent more radioactive than is generally accepted - about 80 percent the level of natural uranium.

 

"It's like saying which is worse: getting shot with 10 bullets or with eight bullets - what difference does it make?" he said.

[Mercedes Benzene]

I didn't think we used DU for ammunition anymore. Wasn't that abolished after the Gulf War?

[Queso]

what to do with all this ****?

 

shoot it at the terrorists!

 

it's a gnarly concept that doesn't surprise me at all. thanks for those visions. those poor mutants, man . .

[Qfwfq]

Wasn't that abolished after the Gulf War?

You mean the first or the second?

 

shoot it at the terrorists!

It doesn't harm only the target, some of the stuff aerosols and hangs around for a while to be breathed.

[Pyrotex]

Note that when the projectile impacts armor, say, a military vehicle, and ignites -- you get a whole lot of Uranium Oxide settling out as fine dust. Much of the initial fireball smoke particles are made up of Uranium Oxide. :D

 

The really bad news is -- DU has not, and probable will not be banned from military ordnance and armor in the near future. In fact, as long as it is available and cheap* it will be used.

 

*The cost of DU is considered low because it is a "waste product" of an expensive process. The fissile isotopes that go into nuclear weapons are assigned the "cost" that goes into processing the raw Uranium. The only "cost" assigned to the DU is machining and logistics. As far as military stuff goes, this makes it essentially "free". And there is nothing that does the job as well.

[CraigD]

Is there a way to make better bullets and projectiles w/o depleted uranium?

As far as military stuff goes, this makes it essentially "free". And there is nothing that does the job as well.

Sure there is.

 

The main desirable trait in a projectile material is density. Uranium’s very dense (about 19.1 g/cm^3). Poor old traditional bullet stuff lead is practically fluff in comparison at about 11.3 g/cm^3.

 

Tungsten’s a little denser (about 19.4 g/cm^3), Platinum (about 21.45 g/cm^3) even more, though the former being valuable and uncommon, and the latter being about the most rare and valuable precious metal there is, put a practical damper them. Gold is in the same range (about 19.3 g/cm^3). All have an additional disadvantage that your enemy can gather them up and get so rich you can no longer afford to have a war with him.

 

Thus, I fear Pyrotex is correct for all practical considerations.

 

Mercury, though liquid at room temperature, is dense (about 13.5 g/cm^3), but, nearly everyone knows, not a good thing to go throwing about.

 

A quick browse of a table of elements suggests that Seaborgium (at a barely-measured-in-time 35 g/cm^3) could be the ultimate bullet material, but given that only traces of it have been made at tremendous cost, and the most stable isotopes (271Sg, half life 2.4 min) is, along with its chain of decay products, so radioactive it makes plutonium look like something you’d like be comfortable using as sunblock, is far beyond the realm of reasonable possibility. (I sincerely hope – one should never underestimate the ingenuity of weapon designers :D)

 

Even though it seems innocuous in comparison, hardly any common projectile-material is very environmentally friendly, until you get down in the much lower density neighborhood of bio-friendly stuff like iron (7.8 g/cm^3), which is roughly, density-wise, to uranium as aluminum is to iron. Solid lead is a pretty nasty toxin and, unlike, I think, uranium, is hightly bio-available, making it prone to getting into food chains though various creatures great and small.

 

The only practical way to limit ecological damage from weapon waste is, I think, to clean up after them. Given that the world’s militaries can’t even reliably clean up much more dangerous junk like unexploded land mines, dealing with stuff that can’t actually blow you up is, I expect (and would hope), a lower priority.

 

Best plan: don’t go tossing projectiles around that you don’t intend to promptly pick up, which pretty much rules out all weapons of war. War is, in nearly every way I can see, about the most unhealthy thing there is.

[freeztar]

What about the risk of the people we bomb collecting the remaining uranium and re-fabricating weapons? Is this even possible?

[Mercedes Benzene]

What about the risk of the people we bomb collecting the remaining uranium and re-fabricating weapons? Is this even possible?

 

No. It's DEPLETED.

Although it may contain very small concentrations of fissile U-235, it would take hundreds or thousands of tons to extract it. In fact, even if it was possible to collect that much from our used munitions, they wouldn't have any way to extract/enrich the "good stuff".

[Moontanman]

I didn't think we used DU for ammunition anymore. Wasn't that abolished after the Gulf War?

 

Depleted urnium is the fuel of teh future. It wil be in demand for fast breeder reactors and other moder n reactors. Shooting it an enemy is like shooting oil at them.

[CraigD]

Depleted urnium is the fuel of teh future. It wil be in demand for fast breeder reactors and other moder n reactors. Shooting it an enemy is like shooting oil at them.

Moontanman, do you have any support for this claim? :(

 

The only nuclear fuel of which I’m aware that uses depleted uranium is MOX. This fuel requires weapon-grade plutonium, however – without the plutonium, the spent uranium is valueless.

 

Adding depleted uranium to Thorium FBR fuel has been proposed as a way to “spoil” the spent fuel for weapon use (see Fast breeder reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The depleted uranium in this application is simply an additive, not a fuel.

 

In neither case is depleted uranium alone worth very much. Since it’s an inexpensive waste product of conventional fission power plants, I doubt you (or an enemy) could profit much by gathering depleted uranium projectiles.

[Moontanman]

Moontanman, do you have any support for this claim? :shrug:

 

The only nuclear fuel of which I’m aware that uses depleted uranium is MOX. This fuel requires weapon-grade plutonium, however – without the plutonium, the spent uranium is valueless.

 

Adding depleted uranium to Thorium FBR fuel has been proposed as a way to “spoil” the spent fuel for weapon use (see Fast breeder reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The depleted uranium in this application is simply an additive, not a fuel.

 

In neither case is depleted uranium alone worth very much. Since it’s an inexpensive waste product of conventional fission power plants, I doubt you (or an enemy) could profit much by gathering depleted uranium projectiles.

 

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/thyd/ne161/shir/project5.html

[freeztar]

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/thyd/ne161/shir/project5.html

 

That article states:

 

In conclusion, since Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor use U(238)

 

As MB mentioned above, there is some fissile U-235 remaining, but it was implied that no U-238 remained. :shrug:

[Moontanman]

That article states:

 

 

 

As MB mentioned above, there is some fissile U-235 remaining, but it was implied that no U-238 remained. :shrug:

 

did you bother to actually read trhe artical? Here is the introduction.

 

Introduction

Nuclear energy, though presently being debated and publicly discussed, contributes significantly to the electricity production in industrialized countries, often to more than 30%. Because the world's reserves of U(235) are not adequate to support indefinitely the needs of a growing nuclear power industry based only on burner or converter reactors, the breeder reactors become more and more popular today. With the introduction of breeder reactors, the fuel base switches from U(235) to U(238) or thorium, both of which are considerably more plentiful than U(235). Furthermore, all of the depleted uranium--that is, the residual uranium, mostly U(238), remaining after the isotope enrichment process--can be utilized as breeder fuel. Breeder Reactors are capable of satisfying the electrical energy needs of the world for thousands of years.

 

Background

[Mercedes Benzene]

Can a breeder reactor function on U-238 alone?

It seems like you would need a whole lot of it for that to be possible. I will admit I don't know much about breeder reactors.

[CraigD]

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/thyd/ne161/shir/project5.html

From the linked-to article:

The LMFBR operates on the uranium-plutonium fuel cycle or thorium-U(233) fuel cycle. The reactor is fueled with bred isotopes of plutonium in the core, and the blanket is natural or depleted uranium.

and 2 paragraphs earlier

Furthermore, all of the depleted uranium--that is, the residual uranium, mostly U(238), remaining after the isotope enrichment process--can be utilized as breeder fuel

Fast breeder reactors can use the depleted uranium (U-238) produced as a by-product of producing enriched uranium (U-235), but their primary energy source is PU-238, which is produced in U-235 reactors, taken from dismantled nuclear bombs, or from U-238 that has been transformed (“bred”) by the FBR.

 

U-238 in a FBR isn’t fuel, in the usual sense, but is transformed into fuel by its plutonium core, making a system of FBRs and reprocessing plants very efficient.

 

A FBR won’t work (nor will any reactor) if fueled by depleted uranium alone – it must have enriched plutonium. Depleted uranium is cheap and plentiful, while enriched plutonium is rare, expensive, and available only to a few nations. So I just can’t see how the original claim

Depleted urnium is the fuel of teh future. It wil be in demand for fast breeder reactors and other moder n reactors. Shooting it an enemy is like shooting oil at them.

can be true. Anybody with the plutonium they need to fuel a FBR will already have more depleted uranium than they need, and won’t be interested in buying it from people who have had their fields littered with it by a passing military, unless through some coincidence of lack of foresight and shooting a lot of depleted uranium projectiles, a nuclear state uses up all its depleted uranium making projectiles. Even if this were to happen, it could make more by enriching uranium for a conventional fission reactor, which it has constant need to do to supply its conventional fission (U-235) reactors.

[freeztar]

No, I didn't, just skimmed it.

I also had it backwards as U-238 is depleted uranium.

 

The wiki article on breeder reactors does indeed mention using U-238:

 

Production of fissile material in a reactor occurs by neutron irradiation of fertile material, particularly Uranium-238 and Thorium-232.

 

So the U-238 is processed and turned into P-239 (?) from the neutrons streaming out, presumably from the plutonium.

 

In many FBR designs, the reactor core is surrounded in a blanket of tubes containing non-fissile uranium-238 which, by capturing fast neutrons from the reaction in the core, is partially converted to fissile plutonium 239 (as is some of the uranium in the core), which can then be reprocessed for use as nuclear fuel. Other FBR designs rely on the geometry of the fuel itself (which also contains uranium-238) to attain sufficient fast neutron capture.

 

Fast breeder reactor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

So it appears that without enriched plutonium, you can't do anything with the depleted U in FBR technology. But the last sentence in the quote above does not make that clear.

[freeztar]

You beat me to it Craig. :shrug:

 

From the linked-to article:and 2 paragraphs earlierFast breeder reactors can use the depleted uranium (U-238) produced as a by-product of producing enriched uranium (U-235), but their primary energy source is PU-238, which is produced in U-235 reactors, taken from dismantled nuclear bombs, or from U-238 that has been transformed (“bred”) by the FBR.

 

In the wiki article I linked to in my last post, it says that the U-238 is converted into Plutonium-239. Is that a typo?