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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.”
Jun Feng, Frank A. McClintock, Rui Vieira, Regis M. Pelloux, Richard J. Thome
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1177-1182
Ignition Device | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29502
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conductor for the central solenoid of the Compact Ignition Tokamak (CIT) operates with a multiaxial stress condition in which the ratios of the principal stresses are not proportional during the operating cycle. The stresses arise from both the self-electromagnetic loads and interactions with the toroidal field coils. The latter primarily provide a radial compressive load which varies during a pulse. This paper presents the status of conductor evaluation and design criteria development. Analysis of the stress conditions during a pulse indicates that the bulk of the fatigue life damage is done during one portion of the total current scenario. This is based on the postulate that the multiaxial stress and lifetime condition can be characterized approximately by examining the worst combination of shear stress range with tensile stress normal to the shear plane at reversal. The latter is found by tracing the history of the principal shear stresses and their associated normal stresses for all three principal shear planes at the worst point in the coil. The analysis thus provides the operating conditions to be simulated in uniaxial and multiaxial tests from which lifetime correlations can be found for the conductor. Evaluation of existing multiaxial fatigue life data on Alloy 718 has led to a postulate for a criterion to be applied to the conductor. Uniaxial and biaxial data are being taken on candidate conductors to verify the postulated lifetime correlations. The primary candidates for the conductor are C15715 (an alumina-dispersion-strengthened copper) and a CuCrZr alloy. The conductor will be required in plate form, nominally 1-inch thick and 70-inches square. Tests have thus far only been conducted on specimens from subscale plates. The status of the test program and of the full-scale plate development program are given.