Journal
JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RADIOACTIVITY
Volume 128, Issue -, Pages 97-105Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2013.01.001
Keywords
Depleted uranium; Corrosion; Soil; Seawater; Eskmeals; Kirkcudbright
Categories
Funding
- Ministry of Defence
- Depleted Uranium Firing Environmental Review Committee
- Natural Environment Research Council [bgs05010] Funding Source: researchfish
- NERC [bgs05010] Funding Source: UKRI
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Depleted Uranium alloyed with titanium is used in armour penetrating munitions that have been fired in a number of conflict zones and testing ranges including the UK ranges at Kirkcudbright and Eskmeals. The study presented here evaluates the corrosion of DU alloy cylinders in soil on these two UK ranges and in the adjacent marine environment of the Solway Firth. The estimated mean initial corrosion rates and times for complete corrosion range from 0.13 to 1.9 g cm(-2) y(-1) and 2.5-48 years respectively depending on the particular physical and geochemical environment. The marine environment at the experimental site was very turbulent. This may have caused the scouring of corrosion products and given rise to a different geochemical environment from that which could be easily duplicated in laboratory experiments. The rate of mass loss was found to vary through time in one soil environment and this is hypothesised to be due to pitting increasing the surface area, followed by a build up of corrosion products inhibiting further corrosion. This indicates that early time measurements of mass loss or corrosion rate may be poor indicators of late time corrosion behaviour, potentially giving rise to incorrect estimates of time to complete corrosion. The DU alloy placed in apparently the same geochemical environment, for the same period of time, can experience very different amounts of corrosion and mass loss, indicating that even small variations in the corrosion environment can have a significant effect. These effects are more significant than other experimental errors and variations in initial surface area. (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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