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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.”
Ioana R. Cristescu, I. Cristescu, Ch. Day, M. Glugla, D. Murdoch
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 3 | October 2007 | Pages 659-666
Technical Paper | The Technology of Fusion Energy - Tritium, Safety, and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1564
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During plasma operation of ITER in the DT phase, tritium will be distributed in the different subsystems of the fuel cycle; tritium inventories within the systems are not constant, but vary as the gas moves through these systems during the burn and dwell periods. To evaluate the tritium content in each sub-system of the fuel cycle of ITER, a dynamic model for tritium inventory calculation was developed. The code reflects the design of each system in various degrees of detail; both the physical processes characteristics and in some cases the associated control systems are modeled. The amount of tritium needed for ITER operation has a direct impact on the tritium inventories within the fuel cycle subsystems. As ITER will function in pulses, the main characteristics that influence both the maximum value of tritium inventories in the systems and the rapid tritium recovery from the fuel cycle as necessary for refueling are discussed. Eventually the inventories in the Isotope Separation System (as the system with the highest tritium inventory) for short and long pulses and their dependence on the packing molar inventory are presented.
