Depleted Uranium in a/c construction.
 

Hi guys just out of curiosity...I was reading an article in a mag about a/c scrapping and salvage of parts....it mentioned that depleted uranium was used as a counter balance weights,

My question....why this material if its just for a counter balance is....me thinking maybe its very dense like lead.....seems a lot of trouble to go to seeing thats its costly to dispose of.

Nick.

Way more dense than lead. The denser the material, the smaller the physical size of the weight. Its the best material fo the job.... just don't swallow it.

I see thought as much....£20,000 for disposal of the stuff from a 737 I think they said....gee....cheaper to use lead????

Nick.

in the days when this was used no one worried about disposal . only become an issue in the last few years .

The weights in the rotor tips on the wessex if memory serves me correctly were nickel plated depleted uranium.................

Makes good ammunition to, used to penetrate armour from the air.

It's twice as dense as lead and fairly inert and stable, uless you try and cut it, drill it or melt it, then it can release ionising radiation. Crashes require special handling as a result. The ammunition ued by the GAU8 gun on the A10 in the first Gulf War contained a DU core and soldiers were told not to go in the tanks taken out by A10s. Some did and got sick.

Wasn't this one of the, ahem, "many issues" that sufaced after the El-Al 747 accident at Schipol....during the recovery of the wreckage.?

this stuff was introduced over 50 years ago when elf and safety wasn't even thought of, remember things like the 747 classic at least was late 50's design and technology, same probably applies to the 737 as well.

ex USSR
 

Only place this could happen would be in ex Soviet Bloc. Post 1990 there was alot of this stuff in municipal dumps. By the way they have just opened up Chernobyl as atourist attraction.

Yeah, right!

Was used before, these days they use tungsten. A bit less dense and a bit more expensive, but with none of the drawbacks.

It's called depleted uranium for a reason..and that is that the radiation it emits is reduced. It has done it's time in a nuclear reactor and it's radioactive days are over. The emission from depleted uranium will usually not penetrate the dead layers of the dermis. However if you make it small enough to be inhaled or ingested, then that's a bad thing..so hitting armoured plate with a shell containing a DU core will vapourise some of the uranium.. and that is not good...More relevently, if you ever find a DU mass balance (and they are pretty rare these days) look for corrosion. If present do NOT attempt mechanical removal, just paint with chromate primer and leave well alone.

Anf it makes good riveting blocks :D

Remember it is "depleted uranium". Poses no hazard providing it remains whole. It is the dust created when being filed, sanded, drilled or it is allowed corrode that is hazardous.