Talk:Depleted uranium
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Depleted uranium article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article. |
Article policies
|
| Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13Auto-archiving period: 3 months  |
 | This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, use the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information. |
 |
This article contains broken links to one or more target anchors:
The anchors may have been removed, renamed, or are no longer valid. Please fix them by following the link above, checking the page history of the target pages, or updating the links. Remove this template after the problem is fixed | Report an error |
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)
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, . 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)
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)
Calorimeters
I've read a significant amount about these calorimeters, the closest I have come to finding that radioactivity is a desirable property is a mention of using it to calibrate the calorimeter. I think we need something far more solid to show that it is a desirable feature, as I see no mention of it vs. Pb, the benefits I saw mentioned are pragmatic relating to the properties of the resulting instruments in detecting scintillations. Of course what I have read has only scratched the surface, so the text may well be correct. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:34, 9 November 2024 (UTC).