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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.”
H. Yamada, Y. Suzuki, K. Ida, M. Yoshinuma, T. Kobuchi, K. Y. Watanabe, K. Tanaka, T. Tokuzawa, LHD Experimental Group
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 1 | January 2007 | Pages 138-143
Technical Paper | Stellarators | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1295
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Finite-beta equilibria with a double magnetic axis have been realized in the Large Helical Device (LHD). Since the rotational transform is weak in the central region of the LHD, the effect of an externally applied quadrupole field is more pronounced in the central region than in the periphery. Consequently, the magnetic axis splits due to a moderate elongation. In the case of vertical elongation, the figure-eight structure of the magnetic surfaces has been observed in a soft X-ray image. Degradation of confinement due to the appearance of the separatrix is suggested in the case of horizontal elongation, which is closely related to the equilibrium beta limit. The three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium code HINT, which does not assume the existence of nested flux surfaces, provides physical pictures consistent with the experimental observations.
