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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.”
N. S. Klimov, V. A. Kurnaev, A. M. Zhitlukhin, D. V. Kovalenko, I. M. Poznyak, A. A. Moskacheva, D. B. Abramenko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 34-39
doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12402
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The paper concerns experimental investigations of metallic material erosion under the plasma heat loads expected in ITER divertor during transient events such as the type I edge-localized modes and the disruptions. Primary attention is focused on the erosion due to melt layer movement and splashing. The targets of tungsten and other metals were repeatedly exposed to hydrogen plasma flow of 0.5 ms duration in the heat load range of 0.2-4.5 MJ/m2 at the TRINITI plasma gun QSPA-T. The ejection of liquid droplets was observed during plasma exposure by special recoded system and onset conditions of droplets ejection were defined. Between some of the plasma pulses the eroded surface was analyzed with profilometry and microscopy. The mass loss and exposed surface profile were measured as a function of heat load and number of pulses. Experimentally measured target thinning due to melt layer removal from the exposed area to periphery was compared with erosion due to mass loss as a result of droplets ejection and evaporation. The obtained surface profile was compared with the result of numerical calculations which based on simultaneous solving of the 2-D heat conductivity equation and hydrodynamics equations of “shallow water” approximation.