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The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.”
Hiroshi Yoshida, Hidefumi Takeshita, Satoshi Konishi, Hideo Ohno, Toshimasa Kurasawa, Hitoshi Watanabe, Yuji Naruse
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 5 | Number 2 | March 1984 | Pages 178-188
Technical Paper | Tritium Systems | doi.org/10.13182/FST84-A23092
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experimental and theoretical feasibility studies of a catalytic reduction method were carried out for application to the tritium recovery processes in fusion reactor systems. Experiments on the decomposition of water vapor were performed under the following conditions: temperatures of 350 to 650 K; an H2O vapor concentration of 103 to 104 ppm; a mole ratio of CO to H2O of 1 to 10; and a space velocity of 2 × 102 to 2 × 104 h−1. The catalyst used was a mixture of CuO, ZnO, and Cr2O3. It has been demonstrated that this method using the zinc-stabilized catalyst can be adapted to recover tritium from tritiated water with a high conversion ratio (>0.999 per one path) at comparatively low temperature (450 K). The catalytic rate equation and the rate constants determined by this work can be used for designing a practical catalytic reduction bed for the decomposition process of the tritiated water.