General Chat / Discussion, page-13745

Defense hype

A usually well-informed source in China says, that the dysprosium content of an F-35 fighter jet should be quite precisely 417 gram, not only as an alloy of NdFeB but also as a part of a certain other alloy.

Another usually well informed source, this time from the West, puts the overall rare earth content of an F35 at 4.5 kgs.

This number would commensurate with so far very low numbers of overall NdFeB rare earth permanent magnet use in the U.S. military which we hear from western sources. Less than 200 t/y.

Why? Tiny quantities of rare earths have a huge impact.

The proposed rare earth military consumption numbers of junior rare earth miners and their sponsored foghorns are detached from reality.

Default defense magnet: NOT NdFeB

We don’t get tired pointing out that the samarium-cobalt magnet is the default magnet in defense, owing to its high heat resistance, multiple times higher than the much hyped NdFeB magnet.

Where the working temperature requirement is lower, more powerful NdFeB magnets are used, for example in the actuators that control the fins of gravity-guided bombs.

Junior miners and their sponsored foghorns do not like that, because samarium is comparatively minor and boring for them.