Proton beams taste bad

ISTR Instant coffee and wall plaster are about the most radioactive bulk product things that the consumer can buy. When the latter comes from phosphate fertiliser tailings with a trace of radioactive elements.

There is about 2ppm of uranium in the crustal rocks and soils. More in places derived from igneous rocks and less in places that are not.

The most annoying thing about uranium is that it is incredibly spread out and seldom concentrated in one place so that decent grade ores with economically mineable concentrations are very rare.

Provided you wrap U238 in sheet of paper or Melinex film then the alpha particles get stopped and there is no hazard. Been there done that.

Depleted uranium is used for compact counterweights and paradoxically as radiation shielding in certain types of sensitive nuclear experiments - placing it sandwiched between a cheap outer case to protect the experimenter and an exotic smelted before the nuclear age ex warship steel on the inside. Apparently it has a better stopping power than lead.

Not quite harmless, but it would take a long exposure. All bets are off if you ignite it as the smoke particles can get into lungs and deliver alpha particles directly to the body. It is used in various situations where mechanical integrity and very high density are useful. It will still take a long to do damage, but localised hotspots are a potential risk as is heavy metal poisoning if there is too much. Zinc fever beig the canonical form that afflicts welders etc.

Uranium is pyrophoric so when DU rounds hit their target the metal ignites under the heating effect of the shockwave.

Regards, Martin Brown

Martin Brown expounded in news:u049p.15395$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe02.iad:

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I was surprised to learn that the tail end of some(/all?) jumbo jets have a big block of uranium, to balance the fuselage. I assume that it is jacketed in lead. In a TV documentary, this was one of the things they recovered when wrecking a plane for parts.

Warren

All avionics techs are familiar with that big box of dirt in the tail section where all the radios and stuff get their Earth ground. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Electroplating it or a thick coat of varnish would be almost good enough. I suspect thin steel plate is used more to prevent the stuff from seeing oxygen in the event of a fire than anything else.

BTW they don't like you mentioning the aerospace application of DU in public - it frightens the children.

Regards, Martin Brown

Martin Brown expounded in news:AYz9p.59198$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe01.iad:

You certainly wouldn't want the emergency response crews going in to remove it before getting the people out. ;-)

After the airport searches these days, I'd be surprised if anything scares the children after they finally get boarded.

Warren

If this is true, then why don't they place the wings more forward instead?

What do you know about the aerodynamics of a plane?

Things like centers of gravity and lift, drag and lift coefficients, angle of attack, "negative incidence" meaning the horizontal stabilizer (or rearward wing of a canard) has less angle of attack than the forward one to achieve stability in the pitch direction for level flight, ...