Chinese apdsfs round
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Ambivalent
Junior Member
That may be true, but the actual composition remains classified. M-1A2 reportedly has a different armor composition with no DU. The Australians were adamant when they bought theirs that they did not use DU in their armor, while the US Army is adamant the Australian tanks are bog standard US Army A2's.
Btw, DU is no longer so plentiful in the US as it once was as we are no longer making new nuclear warheads.
Dear Sirs:
It is my understanding that the source of depleted uranium is the tails of the enrichment process for the production of enriched uranium - whether that enriched uranium is used for nuclear weaponry or for nuclear fuel is a political decision.
The term in fact was coined by the people involved in the development of the enrichment process.
As such, as long as there is a need for enriched nuclear fuels, there will be a lot of depleted uranium.
As the United States is the largest operator of civilian nuclear reactors - all needing to be refueled to be kept in operation, (particularly during a period of high fossil fuel prices and fears of the greenhouse effect) and so will have a relatively constant supply of depleted uranium available.
In fact all countries that operate light-water power reactors (the vast majority of nuclear power plants in operation nowadays) and have their own native enrichment facilities, must have stocks of depleted uranium.
China in addition to having the fastest growing nuclear power program in the world, also has obtained (from both the West and from Russia) and has also developed indigenous modern centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment. It seeks to master all elements and technologies involved in the nuclear fuel cycle.
In addition, it also has the worlds largest supplies of wolfram (the chief ore of tungsten) and is the worlds main supplier of the metal.
So in any instance the People's Republic does not lack for any of the critical materials for the production of modern armor-piercing ammunition.
It is also my understanding that the main form in which tungsten is used in projectiles is as tungsten carbide - a material with which I have much experience.
You see I made tool-and-die and we used tungsten carbide frequently to make dies (interestingly enough for Intel, Texas Instruments, Motorola and other semi-conductor companies) and other hard-wearing tools and it is most frequently used as the cutting bit in machine tools.
The raw material was imported (from Carbidie in the USA, let me quote the owner Pete Waslis - he was in the US Navy - "everybody gets their tungsten from China") in the form of what are called pre-forms (pre-molded shapes for finish machining) or blocks that were 4x4x1 or 4x4x2 inch. The outer surface is dull like graphite or grey cast iron, but when cut, the inner surface is like a powdery gold.
Now tungsten carbide is almost diamond hard - greater than 72 in the Rockwell 'C' hardness test - in about 1 in 3 tests, the diamond pyramid used to penetrate the test sample will break if you are not careful. I have frequently seen the material crack (it is rather brittle) but never have I seen it mushroom or deform.
Now uranium metal (which I have also handled) is in fact rather SOFT - softer than mild steel and incredibly dense. I suspect that like tungsten the material used in projectiles is a carbide of uranium which is much harder than the metal but not as hard as tungsten carbide.
The uranium is used due to the tremendous sectional density it imparts to the projectile - enabling it to literally punch out a plug of less dense armor, in the form of a uranyl carbide which has small cap of tungsten carbide in front of it.
Just my 2 cents.
Dusky Lim
It is my understanding that the source of depleted uranium is the tails of the enrichment process for the production of enriched uranium - whether that enriched uranium is used for nuclear weaponry or for nuclear fuel is a political decision.
The term in fact was coined by the people involved in the development of the enrichment process.
As such, as long as there is a need for enriched nuclear fuels, there will be a lot of depleted uranium.
As the United States is the largest operator of civilian nuclear reactors - all needing to be refueled to be kept in operation, (particularly during a period of high fossil fuel prices and fears of the greenhouse effect) and so will have a relatively constant supply of depleted uranium available.
In fact all countries that operate light-water power reactors (the vast majority of nuclear power plants in operation nowadays) and have their own native enrichment facilities, must have stocks of depleted uranium.
China in addition to having the fastest growing nuclear power program in the world, also has obtained (from both the West and from Russia) and has also developed indigenous modern centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment. It seeks to master all elements and technologies involved in the nuclear fuel cycle.
In addition, it also has the worlds largest supplies of wolfram (the chief ore of tungsten) and is the worlds main supplier of the metal.
So in any instance the People's Republic does not lack for any of the critical materials for the production of modern armor-piercing ammunition.
It is also my understanding that the main form in which tungsten is used in projectiles is as tungsten carbide - a material with which I have much experience.
You see I made tool-and-die and we used tungsten carbide frequently to make dies (interestingly enough for Intel, Texas Instruments, Motorola and other semi-conductor companies) and other hard-wearing tools and it is most frequently used as the cutting bit in machine tools.
The raw material was imported (from Carbidie in the USA, let me quote the owner Pete Waslis - he was in the US Navy - "everybody gets their tungsten from China") in the form of what are called pre-forms (pre-molded shapes for finish machining) or blocks that were 4x4x1 or 4x4x2 inch. The outer surface is dull like graphite or grey cast iron, but when cut, the inner surface is like a powdery gold.
Now tungsten carbide is almost diamond hard - greater than 72 in the Rockwell 'C' hardness test - in about 1 in 3 tests, the diamond pyramid used to penetrate the test sample will break if you are not careful. I have frequently seen the material crack (it is rather brittle) but never have I seen it mushroom or deform.
Now uranium metal (which I have also handled) is in fact rather SOFT - softer than mild steel and incredibly dense. I suspect that like tungsten the material used in projectiles is a carbide of uranium which is much harder than the metal but not as hard as tungsten carbide.
The uranium is used due to the tremendous sectional density it imparts to the projectile - enabling it to literally punch out a plug of less dense armor, in the form of a uranyl carbide which has small cap of tungsten carbide in front of it.
Just my 2 cents.
Dusky Lim
Pointblank
Senior Member
I think what we are saying is not that the tungsten would deform or mushroom, the armour is the one that will deform and mushroom. Otherwise, you are spot on.
What is used in the M829 series round is indeed an alloy; it's an alloy of primarily DU and titanium. Other metals also used in DU rounds as an alloy is molybdenum.
Ambivalent
Junior Member
My chemical engineer friend disagrees. The end of the tungsten penetrator mushrooms and punches out a hole in the armor that is larger in diameter than the penetrator rod. It pushes the armor through and into the space behind the armor, spraying this space with shrapnel. The DU alloy self sharpens as it passes through the armor, giving it it's greater penetration capability than tungsten and exits in a spray of molten metal that sets fire to whatever the armor was protecting inside. To my embarrassment I do not remember the technical term my friend uses to describe the ability of DU penetrators to become molten.
Btw, North American Tungsten Corporation operates the Cantung Tungsten mine in Canada. Not everyone buys their tungsten in China. In addition Geodex Minerals mines tungsten from the Sisson Brook project in New Brunswick, and Sultan Minerals has a new find in British Columbia.
The largest tungsten mine in history is in care taker status in California. It is shut down until the price of tungsten rises. There is no shortage of the ore in California, and an active processing plant is in Bishop CA processing ore from many small holdings that dot the deserts and mountains of that region. These mines come are small operations that come in and out of production with changing tungsten prices.
Infra_Man99
Banned Idiot
A quick Internet search reveals: , which I quoted:
"Tungsten is retrieved from the ore minerals scheelite (CaWO4, calcium tungstate) and wolframite ((Fe,Mn)WO4, iron-manganese tungstate). Of the world’s tungsten reserves, over 90% are outside the United States. Of these resources, nearly half are found in China, and Canada and Russia also have large reserves. About one-third of the U.S. imports of tungsten are from China, Russia provides about 25%, and a variety of other nations provide the rest. A significant amount of tungsten is recovered through recycling of scrap tungsten products. Recycled tungsten in the US accounts for nearly one-third of the tungsten consumed. Major production of tungsten concentrates come from Austria, Bolivia, Canada, China, Portugal, and Russia."
Want more data?
A quick Internet search can reveal lots of data about tungsten reserves by universities, industries, and government data.
"Tungsten is retrieved from the ore minerals scheelite (CaWO4, calcium tungstate) and wolframite ((Fe,Mn)WO4, iron-manganese tungstate). Of the world’s tungsten reserves, over 90% are outside the United States. Of these resources, nearly half are found in China, and Canada and Russia also have large reserves. About one-third of the U.S. imports of tungsten are from China, Russia provides about 25%, and a variety of other nations provide the rest. A significant amount of tungsten is recovered through recycling of scrap tungsten products. Recycled tungsten in the US accounts for nearly one-third of the tungsten consumed. Major production of tungsten concentrates come from Austria, Bolivia, Canada, China, Portugal, and Russia."
Want more data?
A quick Internet search can reveal lots of data about tungsten reserves by universities, industries, and government data.
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Pyroforic?
Ambivalent
Junior Member
Yup, thank you.