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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.”
Hiroko Ohuchi, Yasuhiro Kondo, Yamato Asakura, Takao Kawano
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 3 | October 2011 | Pages 944-947
Measurement, Monitoring, and Accountancy | Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12571
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An imaging plate (IP) was applied to measure tritium in high 60Co gamma-ray radiation fields. The IP made of europium-doped BaFBr(I), a photostimulated luminescence (PSL) material, is a two-dimensional radiation sensor. The PSL response of the IP has a peak at 20-50 keV and steeply decreases towards higher energy, falling by one hundredth at around 1 MeV. By utilizing a large difference in the PSL response to photon energy between 60Co (1.173 and 1.333 MeV) and tritium (maximum energy of 18.6 keV), the bremsstrahlung X-ray induced by tritium beta ray was detected in mixed radiation fields with tritium and 60Co, varying 60Co dose rate in the range 0.0013 to 9.22 Gy/min. It was found that the effect of 60Co irradiation to PSL value, obtained by irradiated with tritium of 12.5 MBq, was negligible by dose rate of 4.38 Gy/min and there was only 7.0% difference of PSL value, obtained by irradiated with tritium of 100 MBq, between dose rate of 0.0013 and 9.22 Gy/min. The IP tritium measurement method can be a promising candidate to measure tritium in high gamma-ray radiation fields.
