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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.”
Sanae-Inoue Itoh, Atsushi Fukuyama, Tomonori Takizuka, Kimitaka Itoh
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 16 | Number 3 | November 1989 | Pages 346-364
Technical Paper | Plasma Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A29126
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The consistency of physics constraints imposed on a core plasma in a tokamak reactor is investigated. Conditions for the steady-state operation of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)-grade plasma are listed, i.e., the density limit, the critical beta, feasibility of full current-drive and divertor functions, etc. The parameter regime, in which these guidelines are simultaneously satisfied, is investigated. Based on the available data base, the consistency of the conditions is examined. The L-mode scaling of the energy confinement time is employed for extrapolation to the ITER-grade plasma. The Q value and the size dependence are studied. The consistent operating regime of the steady-state operation is found. If off set-linear scaling is applied, the minimum and necessary input power is ∼130 MW, which enables the full current drive and the steady-state operation of Q = 2.3 with Ip = 20 MA. When the input power is increased to 200 MW, a Q value of 5 is predicted.