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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.”
B.A. Smith, Z. Piek, P. Thomas, R. Vieira
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 19 | Number 3 | May 1991 | Pages 1189-1193
Ignition Device | doi.org/10.13182/FST91-A29504
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The status of the R&D program to evaluate low friction materials for use in the Compact Ignition Tokamak (CIT) is given. The goal is to provide material with a friction coefficient of 0.1 or lower at a 77 K interface between the central solenoid and the case of the toroidal field (TF) coil inner leg. The material must withstand 3000 machine pulses under a transverse compressive stress of about 207 MPa and be able to withstand relative surface motions of the order of 2 mm. A testing machine capable of providing 1.3 MN of compressive load and 0.44 MN of oscillating thrust in the direction of relative motion was prepared and is described in the paper together with the instrumentation and control system. Data can be taken at room temperature and at 77 K. Measured room temperature friction coefficients of the initial single stroke tests are plotted for twelve candidate materials as a function of compressive stress. All candidates exhibited friction coefficients below 0.1 for compressive stress above 172 MPa. Single stroke results on two candidates at 77 K showed friction coefficients higher than their room temperature values by a factor of about 3 at 44 MPa compression, with the coefficients tending toward their room temperature values as the compression was increased to 228 MPa. Of the seven candidates tested cyclically with a 5 mm stroke at 253 MPa and 77 K, only two types of Fiberslip materials met the requisite 3000 cycles. Friction coefficients for all materials are plotted as a function of the number of cycles.