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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.”
D. R. Harding, T. C. Sangster, D. D. Meyerhofer, P. W. McKenty, L. D. Lund, L. Elasky, M. D. Wittman, W. Seka, S. J. Loucks, R. Janezic, T. H. Hinterman, D. H. Edgell, D. Jacobs-Perkins, R. Q. Gram
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 48 | Number 3 | November 2005 | Pages 1299-1306
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A1079
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The OMEGA cryogenic target handling system provides deuterium-filled cryogenic targets for direct-drive implosion experiments. The targets are 0.9 mm in diameter with a 3-m-thick outer plastic ablator and an inner ice layer that ranges from 80 to 100 m thick. The smoothest ice layer possessed an average root-mean-square (rms) roughness of 1.2 m, although values ranging from 2 to 4 m are more typical. Implosion experiments achieved a maximum yield of 2.11 × 1011 primary neutrons (70% of the clean one-dimensional yield) with an average areal density of 50 mg/cm2 with a 1-ns square, high-adiabat ( = 25) laser pulse. Lower yields (1 × 1010 primary neutrons) and higher areal densities (88 mg/cm2) were obtained using a lower-adiabat ( = 4) laser pulse. Better performance is expected once smoother ice layers (better than 2-m average rms roughness) are positioned within 10 m of where the laser beams are pointed. Currently, the offset between the target's location and where the laser beams are pointing at the moment of implosion is 14 to 60 m.