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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.”
Satoshi Fukada, Shigeki Ono, Shigenori Suemori
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 50 | Number 1 | July 2006 | Pages 99-106
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1225
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The overall mass-transfer process of methane decomposition on Ni surfaces and hydrogen permeation through a Ni tube was experimentally investigated to design a catalytic-permeable Ni tube reactor. This is a basic study of an impurity detritiation system to decompose tritiated methane and continuously recover tritium in a gas mixture exhausted from fusion plasma. The mass-transfer process was comparatively studied under the two conditions of an open Ni tube without any packing and a Ni tube packed with 200-240 mesh Ni particles. Results were discussed in terms of a CH4 decomposition ratio decomp and a H2 permeation ratio perm. The decomp values depended on temperature and were almost independent of the flow rate. The decomp value was correlated to the first-order reaction-rate constant. On the contrary, the perm values were in reverse proportion to the flow rate and were almost independent of temperature. The perm value was related to diffusion through a H2 concentration boundary layer formed in the vicinity of the Ni tube wall. The degradation of catalytic performance due to carbon deposition on Ni was discussed based on our experiments.