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Fusion Energy
This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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. V. Lvovskiy, A. L. Solomakhin
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 59 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 298-300
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A11641
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Plasma consists of two components in the Gas Dynamic Trap facility: a relatively cold and dense collisional plasma and a population of fast anisotropic ions which oscillate between mirror points. Peaks of fast ion density are made closely to the mirror points. It formes an ambipolar potential difference between these points and the center of the facility. The ambipolar potential restricts a plasma flow through the mirror region, so it influences on the plasma confinement. The ambipolar potential value can be found from the line plasma density in the central facility region. The dispersion interferometer, which is based on a CO2-laser with wavelength = 9.57 m, has been made for this purpose. The minimal line plasma density measurable with the dispersion interferometer is (nel) ~ 1013 cm-2, the time resolution is 100 s. The fast ion line density is 4 times higher than the warm ion line density in the mirror region. The ambipolar potential value is e [approximately equal] 0.7 Te in electron temperature units. Also the flute instability restriction opportunity with gradient of local electric field has been observed. The limiter voltage satisfying the condition U ~ Te is boundary for stabilization of plasma behavior.
