Military uses include defensive armor plating and armor-piercing projectiles. Civilian uses include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shielding in medical radiation therapy and industrial radiography equipment, and containers used to transport radioactive materials. In the past, DU has been called Q-metal, depletalloy, and D-38.ĭU is useful because of its very high density of 19.1 g/ cm 3. DU is also found in reprocessed spent nuclear reactor fuel, but that kind can be distinguished from DU produced as a byproduct of uranium enrichment by the presence of U-236. The external radiation dose from DU is about 60 percent of that from the same mass of natural uranium. The byproduct of enrichment, called depleted uranium or DU, contains less than one third as much U-235 and U-234 as natural uranium. Uranium is enriched in U-235 by separating the isotopes by mass. U-235 is used for fission in nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Depleted uranium (DU) is uranium primarily composed of the isotope uranium-238 (U-238).
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