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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
Alvia E. Bridges, Alan E. Waltar, Robert D. Leggett, Ronald B. Baker, Jerry L. Ethridge
Nuclear Technology | Volume 102 | Number 3 | June 1993 | Pages 353-366
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A17034
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of the ferritic/martensitic HT-9 alloy as the cladding and duct material for the Core Demonstration Experiment (CDE) directly contributed to the attainment of the high fuel burnup levels critical to the viability of an economical liquid-metal reactor fuel system. The CDE, a partial core loading of fuel and blanket assemblies in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fast Flux Test Facility, has successfully attained its irradiation exposure goal of 3 yr. Consisting of ten fuel and six blanket assemblies in a heterogeneous core configuration, the CDE has clearly demonstrated the capability of the advanced fuel and blanket designs to attain high burn ups and fast fluences. Each CDE fuel assembly consisted of 169 large-diameter fuel pins comprising mixed-oxide annular fuel pellets in sealed HT-9 cladding tubes. Each CDE blanket assembly consisted of 91 large-diameter pins comprising solid depleted uranium dioxide pellets in sealed HT-9 cladding tubes. The maximum-exposure CDE fuel assembly reached a peak pellet burnup of 163 900 MWd/tonne metal (M) and a peak fast fluence (E > 0.1 MeV) of 23.3 × 1022 n/cm2. The maximum-exposure CDE blanket assembly reached a peak pellet burnup of 43100 MWd/tonne M and a peak fast fluence (E > 0.1 MeV) of 22.8 × 1022 n/cm2. Lead test fuel assemblies built to CDE specifications continue their successful irradiation and have attained burnups of >238 000 MWd/tonne M with accumulated fast fluences (E > 0.1 MeV) of >38 x 1022 n/cm2. In-core measurements of HT-9 ducts and withdrawal loads of the assemblies indicate that duct distortion will not be a factor that limits the lifetime of the fuel or blanket assemblies. Comparison of the measured and predicted coolant outlet temperatures from the peak CDE fuel and blanket assemblies indicate the irradiation of the CDE has proceeded as planned. The CDE represents a tremendous success in demonstrating the lifetime capabilities of this advanced oxide system using the HT-9 ferritic alloy for structural materials.
