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ANS Student Conference 2025
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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.”
G. A Esteban, F. Legarda, A. Perujo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | July-August 2005 | Pages 617-620
Technical Paper | Tritium Science and Technology - Materials Interaction and Permeation | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1001
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A time-dependent gas-phase absorption-desorption technique has been used to evaluate the isotope effect on the diffusive transport parameters of hydrogen isotopes in polycrystalline tungsten and the reduced activation ferritic-martensitic steel OPTIFER-IVb.Experiments have been run with both protium and deuterium obtaining their respective transport parameters of diffusivity (D), Sieverts' constant (Ks), the trap site density (Nt) and the trapping activation energy (Et). Isotope effects on these transport parameters are analysed and modelled. Because the classical isotope relation for diffusivity has not been fulfilled, quantum-statistical vibration theory has been applied to model the isotopic relation. The hydrogen vibration properties description in a metallic-host lattice allows deriving more accurate tritium transport parameters. A congruent isotopic variation of diffusion parameters related to the type of crystal structure, bcc, has been confirmed.
