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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.”
R.-D. Penzhorn, Y. Hatano, M. Matsuyama, Y. Torikai
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 1 | July 2013 | Pages 45-53
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST12-625
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Stainless steel exposed to gaseous tritium characteristically shows a firmly trapped fraction of tritium in the surface layer, which is not fully removable by water at ambient temperature. Prolonged thermal treatment of tritium-loaded specimens at <443 K causes substantial depletion of the bulk but almost no depletion of the surface layer. For complete removal of hydrogen isotopes from the bulk and the surface, temperatures exceeding 573 K are necessary. Upon chemical etching virtually all tritium trapped in the surface layer appears in the etching solution as tritiated water. Following removal of the layer by chemical etching, the tritium-rich layer reappears after months of aging at ambient temperature with nearly the original tritium activity. Comparison of chronic tritium release rates into liquid water before and after etching reveals that the surface layer only marginally influences the rate. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy provides evidence that during prolonged aging the surface layer continues to grow while at the same time trapping a fraction of bulk tritium released at ambient temperature. Experimental results suggest different mechanisms of hydrogen uptake and release by the bulk and surface layers. Inference of tritium activity in the bulk of aged or heat-exposed stainless steel material from surface activity measurements may depart significantly from reality.