Depleted Uranium?

I have a collection of the of pure samples of the periodic table of the elements and DU it's in the collection,
I can warranty you that your metal detector never is not going to come across a piece of DU (depleted uranium) out there,
here is a little experiment I did a few years ago by placing a stainless steel filler gauge a piece of beryllium metal same thickens and on top a piece of DU and let them expose for 1 1/2 hours, processed the film as as you can see the Be is highly permeable to gamma radiation and the DU is radioactive,
I am looking in my computer for a picture of DU that I can post here for you.
yes it's legal to DU under the general license, do your research.

the very last picture is Thorium metal also slightly radioactive,

here is a picture of the piece of DU from the other side

If you want to hunt for the DU, radiacs are fairly cheap. I have one I got from a surplus store. Works great. I have a small collection of radioactive fiesta wear, and clocks.

The was a documentary about a guy that found where they bumped debris of the old Radium Dial factory in the woods. It's still hot, when anyone can just climb over it. Interesting documentary.

I sincerely hope to NOT find ANY radioactive material

Yomero,
Thank you for posting the pictures and the information. How can you be sure that all of it was cleaned up?

BTW - you duplicated the experiment that led to the discovery of radiation!

I am still doing research on MDing over here and wondered if this was another thing to put in a lengthy list of things to keep a watch for - and avoid.

I once heard someone say that everything in the desert will bite or sting you if you are not careful. They forgot to mention that feral camels will lean up against your car and make dents in it, or that birds can fly over thousands of square miles of desert and bomb you from high altitude, and you are the only person for miles and miles.

HH,
John Morton

Vethraxx said:

The was a documentary about a guy that found where they bumped debris of the old Radium Dial factory in the woods. It's still hot, when anyone can just climb over it. Interesting documentary.

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That was down in Ottawa Illinois, not far from here. Some of the areas where the old factories stood still have signs warning of the danger from Radium. Want to hear some horror stories then read about some of the women who worked painting the dials. They were instructed, among other things, to twirl the brush in their mouths in order to bring the tip to a fine point when painting dials.

I doubt you will find any depelted uranium, but I suppose you never know.

Mike1961 said:

I doubt you will find any depelted uranium, but I suppose you never know.

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I don't think you will with a metal detector and if you come across one you will think is junk,
most likely if you collect pure metal elements like me and have something I don't have we may make a trade,
latter, some time next week when I come back from Mexico I will go to my storage and see what digital ID I will get in my E-trac from a piece of DU.

Here is a picture of two prototype DU bullets that I got in a trade from an Engineer, this were only prototypes bullets made by civilian corporation and never mass produced for the government, they are made of DU and coated with titanium nitride,
I latter traded both to a University professor who insisted too much in the trade for a titanium grown crystal and other hard to find pure element metals.

yomero said:

they are made of DU and coated with titanium nitride,

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I think folks may be confused here. I'm a Radiation Protection tech at a nuclear power plant. Your detector will pick up DU if it sees it; and you don't want to handle it. First of all, one of the reasons that new bullets are coated are to protect the solders that are firing them. Once the bullet hits a hard surface, it will be damaged from the impact and the DU can be (probably will be) exposed. The damage will release small chips and dust. The chips and dust exposure is what can contaminate you. Having a little DU "dust" on your skin is significantly more hazardous than having a new bullet with the coating intact. Buying radiation detectors to measure the DU that you find will not be sensitive enough to measure contamination on your skin. (If it does detect anything, you have a LOT of it on your skin.) I think folks are confusing the term "radiation" and "contamination". If your skin gets contaminated, you can ingest it accidently. That'll be far worse than the little amount of radiation that you'd be exposed to. I've been in the nuclear industry for over 25 years, and I can't suggest strongly enough to stay away from DU in the field. We had an instructor that used to work for the army. One of his jobs was to survey the targets after testing anti-armor rounds. The targets were contaminated with alpha contamination. You won't see alpha with most over-the-counter radiation detectors. Sorry this is so long winded, I'd hate to see someone get sick over a hobby that's supposed to be fun. Curt

Is the depleted uranium your talking about depleted as in it can't be used in a power plant anymore, or something else?

ct01r said:

I think folks may be confused here. I'm a Radiation Protection tech at a nuclear power plant. Your detector will pick up DU if it sees it; and you don't want to handle it. First of all, one of the reasons that new bullets are coated are to protect the solders that are firing them. Once the bullet hits a hard surface, it will be damaged from the impact and the DU can be (probably will be) exposed. The damage will release small chips and dust. The chips and dust exposure is what can contaminate you. Having a little DU "dust" on your skin is significantly more hazardous than having a new bullet with the coating intact. Buying radiation detectors to measure the DU that you find will not be sensitive enough to measure contamination on your skin. (If it does detect anything, you have a LOT of it on your skin.) I think folks are confusing the term "radiation" and "contamination". If your skin gets contaminated, you can ingest it accidently. That'll be far worse than the little amount of radiation that you'd be exposed to. I've been in the nuclear industry for over 25 years, and I can't suggest strongly enough to stay away from DU in the field. We had an instructor that used to work for the army. One of his jobs was to survey the targets after testing anti-armor rounds. The targets were contaminated with alpha contamination. You won't see alpha with most over-the-counter radiation detectors. Sorry this is so long winded, I'd hate to see someone get sick over a hobby that's supposed to be fun. Curt

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bla bla bla bla bla,

We had an A-10 Warthog that crashed here at Spangdahlem a couple of months ago and myself and another guy form my shop had to go to the scene to set up lights and portable heaters. When we got there the plane was still on fire and I was worried about possible DU inhalation but it turns out they weren't carrying that type of ammo. That would really suck...

As I understand it,

Midnight said:

Is the depleted uranium your talking about depleted as in it can't be used in a power plant anymore, or something else?

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YES!
Depleted Uranium is Uranium that is almost completely composed of isotope U238.
When mined, Uranium is a mixture of Isotope U235 and U238. U235 is highly dangerous and can be used in an atomic reaction. U238 is not so radioactive, and is used in making DU projectiles which are used primarily for killing tanks and other similar targets.
High density makes good materials for projectiles. The more density, the more force is delivered to the target for a given projectile velocity and weight.
Lead is used for projecties used on flesh targets, since they are easily penetrated, and the lead, if pure enough will tend to wrap around bone tissue and shatter it and remove it from the target. In alloyed form, lead is harder and tends to make holes through flesh targets. Often copper or other metals are used to make a jacket around the lead core of a bullet, in an effort to gain greater penetration into a flesh target. The jacket also reduces the contact between the lead bullet core and the skin of the person handleing the ammunition.
The DU projectile is more dense and much harder than lead, and makes a projectile that can penetrate an armored vehicle. A Titanium alloy jacket is used on DU projectiles for the same reasons that lead bullets are jacketed with copper alloys.
The theory of the DU round is that it will get into the tank and then zing around inside for a little while. This has a harmful effect on the tank crew.

In addition to some isotopes of Uranium being highly radioactive, ALL isotopes of uranium are highly toxic. If you inhale, swallow or absorb any form of Uranium, you are probably going to have a highly unpleasant demise.

It is hard to seperate fact from tall tales sometimes. I THINK that DU was used during the liberation battles, and I also THINK that DU ammunition was involved in a fire and explosion after hostilities ended. If either of these are in fact, true, then it seems like that no clean-up could have recovered 100% of the particles and dust that were released into the sands here.

I am trying to get a grip on what the particles and dust might look like when I go out to play.

HH,
John Morton