I saw a comment the other day that “steel forged before the nuclear age is very valuable.” and talked about the lengths they go to salvage old battleships etc. for steel made “before the Manhattan project.” What does this mean? How did nuclear testing permanently affect steel worldwide?
In: Chemistry
Modern steel is made by blowing a huge amount of air through the furnace.
Since the first nuclear weapon detonation, the air has a small amount of radioactive isotopes, which attach to the steel when the air is blown through it. That means that all steel made today steel has very low radioactivity, and it remains through forging, recycling, or other manufacturing.
Steel that was smelt before the first nuclear detonation has much, much lower levels of radioactive particles. Because the air was blown through it before WWII.
It’s important for products that require very low levels of radioactivity in their construction (like a Geiger counter, which wouldn’t be very useful if it constantly detected it’s own steel’s radioactivity).
One of the best sources of steel that was absolutely made prior to WWII is a battleship that sank early in WWII.
Latest Answers