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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.”
L. Rodrigo, J.M. Miller, S.R. Bokwa, R.E. Johnson, B.M. MacDonald, J. Senohrabek
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 629-635
Safety and Measurement (Monitoring) | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29818
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Historically, ionization chambers have been used successfully to measure low-level tritium concentrations in air for radiation protection purposes. Problems have been encountered in applying this technique to measure much higher concentrations of tritium in gases other than air, particularly to measure tritium in argon and helium. An experimental program was, therefore, initiated to investigate the various factors that affect the response of ionization chambers. Carrier gas effects on the measurement of elemental tritium were investigated in the concentration range 0–150 Ci/m3. Higher than theoretical calibration factors were obtained consistently with low-level tritium gas standards in both helium and argon, while with high-level gas standards the experimental calibration factors were close to the theoretical value. Use of a commercial ionization chamber to measure tritiated water vapour in dry air streams resulted in severe contamination of the chamber. Water swamping of the dry air stream reduced the ionization chamber contamination to a negligible level, allowing reliable measurements to be made. The calibration of ionization chambers with representative process gases and operating conditions is necessary to ensure reliable tritium concentration measurements.