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Organized to promote the advancement of knowledge in the use of nuclear science and technologies in the aerospace application. Specialized nuclear-based technologies and applications are needed to advance the state-of-the-art in aerospace design, engineering and operations to explore planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond, plus enhance the safety of air travel, especially high speed air travel. Areas of interest will include but are not limited to the creation of nuclear-based power and propulsion systems, multifunctional materials to protect humans and electronic components from atmospheric, space, and nuclear power system radiation, human factor strategies for the safety and reliable operation of nuclear power and propulsion plants by non-specialized personnel and more.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.”
V. I. Davydenko et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 128-131
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11590
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of neutral beam injectors for plasma heating and diagnostics in modern magnetic fusion devices has been developed in the Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics. In ion sources of these injectors arc discharge or RF plasma boxes are used. Ion optical systems are optimized to produce ion beams with a low enough angular divergence. In order to provide beam focusing, the grids are formed as spherical segments. Such ballistically focused beams are further neutralized in a gas target and subsequently are used to heat or diagnose plasma. Obtained diagnostic neutral beams with precise focusing are widely used to measure plasma parameters by beam emission spectroscopy methods in tokamaks, stellarators, reversed field pinches and open traps. High power focused beams with small divergence are also necessary for heating of localized regions of plasma and in the devices with narrow access ports through which only small size, high power density beams can be transported. Transition to steady state operation regime of the injectors is discussed.
