DU - Health Risk?

Well apparently you are selective about your prejudices. Now you are applying a cost /benefit analysis to these other substances. Previously you stated that if even one person was harmed then it should be banned.
If we apply the same kind of cost/benefit analysis to DU (which all the experts agree represents an insignificant risk) then there is no compelling reason to ban it. Tungsten is not a good alternative because most of it comes from a nation that is a potentally hostile power and might one day be a military adversary of the US (and possibly Europe as well).

 

I have not said that DU ammo should be banned, now you are putting the words in my mouth....

I say there is an alternative to DU ammo that is not radioactive and therefor lesser risk for people when used.....

and I did not say anthing about the cost of anything, no piece tag have been mention from my side

but do you have an alternative to medical drugs? do you have an alternative to diesel and other fuels at the moment? no, nobody have, but people are working on it

you have an alternative to DU ammo that is not radioactive, why not use it? you have still not answered that question

and are you calling Portugal an hostile country? they supply tungsten, they are the main source of tungsten in Europe (let me remind you that portugal is member of NATO, Im not sure they would be happy if you called them hostile) and California and Colorado also have tungsten depots, are they hostil? and what about South Korea that also have tungsten depots?

and as I said we are keep look for less dangerous alternativs in the chemical world, now take this new chemical law that EU passed not long ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6037958.stm

 

Of 70,000 tons of tungsten concentrate produced in 2005 , 65,000 tons came from China and Russia. The US doesn't produce tungsten any longer and the US strategic reserve has been cut into and is inadequate for a wartime footing. It would be unwise, even foolhardy for the US to allow it's foreign policy to be possibly vetoed by Portuagal or any other country.

As to alternatives to the other things you mention yes indeed they exist.
Alcohol is harmful and the alternative is to abstain. There are solar energy and non-polluting fuel cell technologies that can serve the purpose that diesels now serve. They would be expensive to develop and difficult to adapt to the uses now served by diesel but then you feel that if even one person is harmed that it should be done, correct?

ps..cost/benefit analysis does not just apply to a "price tag" or a monetary cost. Social costs can be factored in as well.

 

Because at current impact velocities, and projectile construction techniques DU based penetrators are better at punching holes in armour than Tungsten based ones.

 

Yes, DU does have trace amounts of radioactivity. So do a large number of materials that are in everyday use aroud the world. The risk is weighted by the government authorities as "safe" enough for use.

I majored in Physics Engineering at Murray State University (but got my education in beer and women ). I have forgotten the half life of DU but it does stay around a long time.

The drain cleaner under your sink has far more caustic materials than DU. The risk of its use is weighted against the possible usage within a ecosystem. No one expects every house hold to start pouring it down the drain at the same time so the ecosystem is expected to absorb a certian percentage of the materials. The same process is used to determine the usage of all heavy metal usage, DU included.

Injesting any heavy metal, including tungsten carbide, is bad.

Please don't turn this thread into the "how we do it in Denmark". I've been to Denmark a couple of times and enjoyed it. The people are awesome but I don't want to go over it here.

 

Gulf War Syndrome is quite a controversial area, but thankfully nothing to do with DU.

A fair few veterans of the '1st Gulf War' complained that the mixture of vaccinations/innoculations they received prior to the war in an attempt to protect them against possible use of bio/chemical warfare has had a very harmful affect on their health.

 

A hole is a hole, tungsten also make holes in armor, is the hole made by DU more special in some way?
Tungsten have been used to make holes in armor since ww2, think its up for the job to do so

Tugsten do the job and you dont have the risk of pollution with radiation, when you now compare to other things in everyday life, then ask you self first if we have an alternative to those things, for the most part we have no alternative, there is no alternative to combustion engines, no alternative to some medical drugs, no alternative to x-ray machines etc.

uranium is unstabil, half life for uranium is around 4x10^9 years, its density is 19,1 g/cm^3
Tungsten's density is 19,25 g/cm^3 and its not radioactive
hmm....tungsten have a higher density then Uranium
Tungsten have a mohs hardness of 7,5 (diamond is 10)
Uranium have a mohs hardness of 6,0
hmmm.....tungsten is harder then uranium
so it can not be because of its density and hardness you use it
and weights is a question of amongs of materials used

its more hazardous to get an radioactive heavy metal into your body then a none-radioactive metal into your body, not only is it poisions (like with all most heavy metals, its also couse damage to the cells in your body when its radioactive (damges to DNA etc.))

in 2001 only 21,300 ton of uranium were supplied to US powerplant (its the powerplant that produce the DU) of which only 1,018 ton came from US alone
seem to me to be a very low number and that you are depending on supplies from out side as well

 

Mike,half-life of DU is 4.46 Bilion years.

 

A few observations I have on this topic, after reading this thread.

1) DU is a useful and cheap way of gaining very dense metals for use in both armour and armour-piercing shells. After all, it is normally a waste product.

2) When a DU round hits/penetrates armour, apparently some dust is created. How much I don't know, but the general consensus seems to be 'small amounts'. This dust, if ingested into the body, is potentially harmful, due to its radioactive nature.

3) WHO studies have shown that, on a general level, this DU dust is not too much of a concern. After all (this bit is from me) how many tanks have been penerated by a DU shell? How much of this dust is now out there in the enivronment? How much of it is in a position to be ingested by a human? (or anything else)

4) The WHO also recommend that children should not play in battle areas because they are more likely to ingest the dust, as children do tend to eat stuff... However there are many other reasons for children not to play in battle areas, all more dangerous than the risk of happening across some dust that you then eat.

5) The dust getting into drinking water etc - well, it is a risk, true. But then take the amount of dust from a shell hit, filter it through a chunk of land, then dump what is left into a river. Take a bucket, fill it from the river, and tell me how much harmful dust is likely to be in the bucket.

6) As a question - has anybody studied how much dust is created by a shell impact, and where it goes? How much actually is deposited outside the stricken vehicle?

 

known among of recoverable uranium in the world is around: 3,622,000 tonnes
estimated reserves of tunsten in the world is around 5 million tonnes
tungsten is also being recycled and it meet 30% of the demand

so there is more tungsten in the world as well

http://www.uic.com.au/ozuran.htm
http://www.lenntech.com/Periodic-chart- ... s/W-en.htm

 

Ricky,DU is nuclear waste.As nuclear waste,r any otther toxic waste,it is extremly low to dupm it on some foreign country just because it is cheaper.We all know how much US put in military budget,and for shure to go back on tungsten cored ammo will not be serius expence.DU is radioactive,and maybe it not hazard to helt (what i doubt) but why take risk? Exsperiments could not confirm,r dismiss acusations.

 

The use of DU in AP projectiles is not "dumping" it in a foreign country at all. If the intention was to dump it cheaply, going to war in order to do so is a ludicrous suggestion since modern warfare is extremely expensive.

If the US really just wanted to dump it off their shores, a cargo ship and a cash bribe to some 3rd world dictatorship would do the trick and so far more cheaply than going to war. Seriously, the suggestion DU is being used in AP shells as a means of dumping toxic waste is ridiculous.

 

tanks shoots use kinetic energy

kinetic energy is given as E=½*m*v^2
m is the weight of the object in kg
v is the speed of the object in meters pr second

now we compare uranium with tungsten, therefor we need to use objects of the same size and that they move with the same speed:
For easyness we use objects of 1 cm^3
meaning tungsten of the size of 1 cm^3 weights 19,25g = 0,01925kg
uranium if the same size weights 19,1g = 0,0191 kg
lets say they move with 1500 meters pr second, then we get:
for tungsten:
E=½*0,01925*1500^2= 21656,25 joules
for uranium:
E=½*0,01910*1500^2= 21487,5 joules

the kinetic energy for an object made by tungsten is higher then the kinetic energy for an object made of uranium of the same size and move with the same speed

 

Whell it is dumping,and Grieg here point that tungsten is more expencive then DU,and that was my point,and yes,it is dumping ower ur own country borders.One sinked ship of DU will cause alot attraction and bad publicity in the wold,this is silent way to do it.

 

It is not a method of dumping it because it is cheaper, if you can support that assertion please indicate how it is cheaper to put, say an armoured division to war complete with supporting units than disposing of the stuff legally and safely.

If this is what the US is doing why is it incorporated into the armour on some of their AFVs? Why, if this is what the US is doing is it used in AP projectiles rather than for example bomb casings?

Just because a material is used in war equipment and traces or dust may be left behind doesn't make that "dumping" it cheaply in foreign countries.

As I've said, the cost of modern warfare is extremely expensive, I cannot see DU penetrators in tank shells as being a cheap alternative at all.

Whereas of course the war in Iraq has been a resounding PR success internationally and virtually no-one's noticed... Bet the US is glad to have shifted all that excess DU though, and so cheaply as well... :roll:

 

when the DU ammo have a higher speed it have nothing to do with that its made of DU, its not the DU that give the round its speed, its the gunpowder that is used for propulsion, type and among of powder

 

Here's a random stupid idea......make titanium rounds! (and no that wasn't a serious idea)

As for the topic.....in the long run- obviously yes, and when it gets powdered and in the environment- yes.

What about the guys inside Abrams tanks- completely surrounded by DU armour (assuming, probably incorrectly, that it is made of DU)?

But, considering we could be droping nukes on each other.....not as bad as it could be.

 

Yes, as a matter of fact, since you asked it is. DU is "self sharpening" when it penetrates armor plate. Lower velocity DU rounds can penetrate equally well with higher velocity tungsten ones and most likely outperform tungsten at equal velocities.

 

I didn't say that DU was cheaper than tungsten. It may or may not be, I don't know but I didn't say it.
I did say that the vast majority of tungsten comes from China and Russia and it would be foolish for the US to be dependent upon either one of them (or any potential adversary) for an essential war material.

Are other countries dumping burned hydrocarbons in other countries with their diesel engined tanks? I can assure you that far more particulate matter is deposited by diesel exhaust than DU dust is left behind.
That is a silly notion.

 

Your calculations prove my point. The lower kinetic energy DU rounds are at least equal to the tungsten rounds according to armament experts despite the lower total energy. How can that be, you say?
Google "depleted uranium, self sharpening" and you will probably get some hits explaining why DU is superior to tungsten at a given velocity.