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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.”
Donald R. Olander, Grant T. Fukuda, C. F. Baes, Jr.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 2 | March 2002 | Pages 141-150
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A208
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The pressures of the vapor species in equilibrium with Flibe at ~600°C are determined from work by Buchler and Stauffer and by Baes and coworkers. The former authors show that the principal vapor species are BeF2(g) and LiBeF3(g). The measurements and the theoretical model of Baes provide accurate values of the activity coefficient of BeF2 in Flibe. When combined with the vapor pressure of pure BeF2, the equilibrium pressure of BeF2 is determined as a function of melt composition and temperature. The activity coefficient of LiF is not measured, but it is obtained by application of the Gibbs-Duhem equation to the measured activity coefficient of BeF2. Thus, the partial pressure of LiF(g) is also known. The pressure of the mixed dimer LiBeF3 is calculated from the gas phase equilibrium for the formation of the dimer from the two monomers, with the equilibrium constant given by Buchler and Stauffer. The vapor pressure at 600°C extrapolated from high-temperature Oak Ridge National Laboratory data is ~60% higher than the predicted values.
