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Re: Depleted Uranium SG



Original poster: David Speck <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Mike,
Uranium metal is very flammable when finely divided.

I read a great chapter in one of the books on the making of the first atomic weapons. They were having difficulty attaching some component to a piece of uranium because of the hard natural protective oxide coating it forms upon exposure to air. One of the machinists had the bright idea of using a sand blaster to clean off the oxide. The instant the blast hit the metallic uranium, a great shower of white hot sparks erupted. Needless to say, that approach was abandoned.

I'm not even crazy about using thoriated tungsten rods in my RSGs because of the small amount of radioactive oxide dust that would be liberated, so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to use uranium for the gaps.

Dave

Tesla list wrote:

Original poster: "Mike" <mike.marcum@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

This is probably the stupidest idea yet, but has anyone thought of using depleted uranium for sparkgap electrodes? Figured if it was one of the heaviest stable elements in the periodic table it won't melt/corrode as easily as tungsten at high power. Does it have crappy RF properties like steel? Probably a moot point in a few years when DRSSTC's take over, but still kinda courious.

Mike