2002/10/18 by Andre Gsponer, André Gsponer, Jean-Pierre Hurni +5 · 1 citation
Engineering · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Nuclear Issues and Defense #Nuclear reactor physics and engineering #Radioactive contamination and transfer #physics.med-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.physics/0210071
To appear in the Proceedings of the 4th Int. Conf. of the Yugoslav Nuclear Society, Belgrade, Sep.30 - Oct.4, 2002, 14 pages, 2 tables. Version 2: Reference [9] updated
arxiv created 2002/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
It is shown that the radiological burden due to the battlefield use of circa 400 tons of depleted-uranium munitions in Iraq (and of about 40 tons in Yugoslavia) is comparable to that arising from the hypothetical battle-field use of more than 600 kt (respectively 60 kt) of high-explosive equivalent pure-fusion fourth-generation nuclear weapons. Despite the limited knowledge openly available on existing and future nuclear weapons, there is sufficient published information on their physical principles and radiological effects to make such a comparison. In fact, it is shown that this comparison can be made with very simple and convincing arguments so that the main technical conclusions of the paper are undisputable -- although it would be worthwhile to supplement the hand calculations presented in the paper by more detailed computer simulations in order to consolidate the conclusions and refute any possible objections.