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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.”
Paul P. H. Wilson, Eric Daum, Ulrich Fischer, Ulrich Von Möllendorff, Detlef Woll
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 33 | Number 2 | March 1998 | Pages 136-145
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST98-A24
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of the International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility (IFMIF) is to provide irradiation conditions of a typical deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion reactor for small material samples, but with higher irradiation levels. An extensive code and data development has been performed, allowing a comprehensive neutronic analysis of the high-flux test volume. New data evaluations for neutron interactions and responses at high energies (20 to 50 MeV) were performed and processed, and a Monte Carlo neutron source model for the Li(d,xn) reaction was developed for use with the MCNP neutron transport code.The neutron flux density was found to be >1014 ncm-2s-1 throughout the anticipated high-flux test volume with a high-energy fraction (>14 MeV) of ~20%. The available test volume with >20 dpa/full-power year in iron was found to be 550 ± 180 cm3. This uncertainty is due almost entirely to the uncertainty in the total neutron yield. Hydrogen and helium production rates were calculated and a helium/dpa ratio between 10 and 12 appm/dpa was found, which is similar to that found in a D-T fusion reactor. IFMIF was found to provide an adequate environment for the simulation of D-T fusion reactors, but more work is required to extend and improve the current data and tools.
