Talk:Depleted uranium

Yacht keels

At least one of the French 12 metre yachts that were built as America's Cup challengers used a DU keel, possibly France 3. I'm looking for references, any help appreciated. Andrewa (talk) 17:27, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

From memory it was one of the yachts financed by Marcel Bich, which means in 1970, 1974, 1977 or 1980, so it wasn't France 3 which was a 1983 effort. Andrewa (talk) 17:35, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm now less confident that it wasn't France 3. There was involvement by a Baron Bic or Baron Bich involved in that one too. Andrewa (talk) 20:55, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

There was a Sydney headline "A Baron of beef" at the time but I can't find it in Trove. Andrewa (talk) 21:57, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Radiological weapon?

Can be the DU ammo be categorized as a radiological weapon? Though not used as an area-denial material, the DU has the secondary effect of contaminating the targets it hit (tanks, armoured vehicles, bunkers, etc.). The US vehicles struck by friendly DU rounds in both the Gulf War and the Invasion of Iraq had to be "washed" as they represented some radiological hazard.----Darius (talk) 00:58, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't make it a radiological weapon, which are nuclear weapons or dirty bombs used for area denial, [1]. VQuakr (talk) 17:39, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, as DU creates vast contamination areas on battlefields, there is no way to deny that this aspect actually does exist. However, this is not an effect intended by the military. At least they claim not to intend such effects. Nevertheless it might be seen as a criminal act to cause such contamination as an unintended, but predictable and well known effect of DU use. So this is a rather tricky issue. 88.67.87.171 (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

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Spallation target

I have read somewhere that depleted uranium (just like natural uranium) would in principle work as a spallation target (i.e. You hit it with fast protons or other stripped ions and get neutrons out) but it is more rarely employed than e.g. Lead. Given that spallation creates more radioactivity than is found in depleted uranium, the radioactivity can't be the reason why it isn't done more often. So can we have more information on that? Hobbitschuster (talk) 13:29, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

incorporated DU will directly harm body cell DNA

There should be at least some explanation in the text concerning DU dusts entering body cells when inhaled. This causes radioactive radiation to be created directly in body cells, obviously causing direct harm to cellular DNA, thus probably causing cancer and various birth defects. So far, there is no such aspect mentioned in the article... ?! 88.67.87.171 (talk) 19:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Density of depleted uranium

The article currently says:

Depleted uranium is notable for the extremely high density of its metallic form: at 19.1 grams per cubic centimetre (0.69 lb/cu in), DU is 68.4% denser than lead.

This is misleading; depleted uranium has the same density as natural uranium. It's just that its lower radioactivity makes it useful in applications where the radioactivity of natural uranium would be a problem.

This section should be modified to make that clear. TypoBoy (talk) 18:53, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Technically, depleted uranium is marginally denser than natural uranium, since U-238 has a higher atomic mass than U-235. ;-) But the difference is less than 0.1%, so I would also support a rewording for clarity. One could also mention that DU is not the densest material - gold and most other precious metals are denser, osmium by almost 20%. Roentgenium111 (talk) 13:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)