Rolls Royce Viper 540 - Magnesium Thorium Alloy

[diegodsp]

hello my friends, i'm from brazil, recently bought two rolls royce viper 540 engines, i paid little. I want to try to make it work in order to put it in the body of a truck and make noise for the neighbors. kkk, but with the research to understand the operation I ended up with a problem, I discovered that the engine body is made of a magnesium alloy with thorium, thorium is a radioactive element that seems to be a question. Could you advise me on the dangers of working with this material? I'm afraid to work on the engine and get sick. see the photos. thanks

[jetric]

  Hi,
   The thorium in the magnesium casings is harmless as long as you do not disturb it by grinding or sanding/machining the casings making the thorium airborne and causing it to be inhaled into the lungs or ingested. The radiation intensity of the thorium is very low and it will not penetrate the skin, It will not even pass through a sheet of paper. Have you tested your casings with a Geiger counter to see if there is any thorium present! As I thought it was only the RR Viper 600 series that had thoriated casings.

  Hope this helps,

 Richard S.

Feb 5, 2020 12:18:28 GMT -5 diegodsp said:

hello my friends, i'm from brazil, recently bought two rolls royce viper 540 engines, i paid little. I want to try to make it work in order to put it in the body of a truck and make noise for the neighbors. kkk, but with the research to understand the operation I ended up with a problem, I discovered that the engine body is made of a magnesium alloy with thorium, thorium is a radioactive element that seems to be a question. Could you advise me on the dangers of working with this material? I'm afraid to work on the engine and get sick. see the photos. thanks

[diegodsp]

Hello friend, I bought a geiger counter, leaning against the engine frame, it marks 20μSv / h, I found it a lot, I was scared.

[diegodsp]

Geiger Counter 

[nik1980]

my name is Nick. Now we are restoring the second L-29 Dolphin. I want to install a more powerful engine on it (Pratt & Whitney J60 / Jt12-6; Rolls Royce Viper 601; Rolls Royce Viper 540). is it possible to buy such engines from you? how much will these engines cost?
Regards, Nick

[rpwp]

Hi Nick,
Most if not all the engines you see us talking about here have finished a service life and are likely without logbooks or such.
This makes fitting them to an aircraft somewhat problematic.
My Viper 601 came out of an L-29 Dolphin named "Screaming Eagle" and ex reno raced version.
Good luck!
Regards
Rene

[jetric]

   Hi Nick,
    Get in touch with a guy called Harry at here;  www.jetenginetrader.co.uk/   He has some 500 series Vipers for sale.

  Richard S.

Jun 1, 2020 14:28:45 GMT -5 nik1980 said:

my name is Nick. Now we are restoring the second L-29 Dolphin. I want to install a more powerful engine on it (Pratt & Whitney J60 / Jt12-6; Rolls Royce Viper 601; Rolls Royce Viper 540). is it possible to buy such engines from you? how much will these engines cost?
Regards, Nick

[nik1980]

he does not respond…((((((

[g8rpi]

Going back on topic, the magnesium-thorium ally used in some aircraft parts is not a radiation hazard unless you either get it inside your body or have it in direct contact with your skin for long periods of time. The geiger counter used to measure the radition almost is almost certainly over reading the level of radiation. This is due to simple geiger tubes having dfferent responses to different energies and types of radiation. Most of the low cost meters use ex-soviet era GM tube thet are oly accurate for Cesium 137 or Cobalt 60 and over-respond for Thorium and it's daughter products. Even if we take 20 uSv per hour as correct, the typical UK annual dose is 2.7 mSv (2700uSv) so your whole body would have to be in that space for 135 hours to get an annual dose. Obviously you can't get your whole body in there. The radiation dose rate drops with the inverse square of distance. Doubling distance dropes rate by 4. I we assume the geiger tube is 100mm from the surface of the engine. and the clostest you can easily stand is 400mm The dose rate standing close would be 1.25 uSV/hr so you would have to stand right next to the engine for over 3 months 24/7 to double your annual dose. Eating 100g of brazil nuts give a dose equal to standing next to the engine for about 8 hours, a transatlntic flight equals about 2.5 days standing by the engine.

Thorium is used in some TIG welding rods and used to be used in gas and paraffin lamp mantles with few if any issues. The only real issue with the alloy is if there is corrosion and you inhale the dust when cleaning it up. Do any cleaning of corrosion with a wet process or wear a good dust mask and there is no issue. Less likely but still a risk is fire, If the engine catches fire stay up wind.

There are other hazards with old engines that are a bigger risk, but still not a problem if you take reasonable precautions. These hazards include TCP in oil and asbestos in seals in insulation.

[stoffe64]

My T312 APU also contains thorium in its magnesium bearing housings...but you dont store that under your bed.

[wilfred]

HI,
My name is wilfred and i am from cameroon. I am looking for a Viper 540 turbojet engine to buy or some spares parts like combustion chamber. this is my whatsapp number for easy communication: [phone].
Thank you.