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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.”
A. Jerry Scott, Daniel E. Wessol, Jerry L. Judd
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 3 | Number 1 | January 1983 | Pages 129-136
Technical Paper | Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST83-A20823
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The neutronic feasibility of testing fusing firstwall/blanket systems in a fission reactor is investigated. Heating rates resulting from a 14-MeV fusion source are calculated with one-dimensional transport theory for two tokamak blanket designs and compared with heating rates computed for the same blankets in the Engineering Test Reactor (ETR). The designs studied are a gas-cooled, liquid-lithium blanket with no neutron multiplier and a water-cooled, solid lithium-aluminate blanket with a beryllium multiplier. Based on these preliminary results, it is concluded that bulk heating rate profiles expected in tokamak reactor blankets can be simulated quite well in large (65- × 76- × 91-cm) blanket experiment modules placed on one side of the ETR core. Heating rates corresponding to tokamak wall loadings of 1 MW/m2 can be achieved, and the level varied to simulate the cyclic operation typical of tokamaks.
