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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.”
E. R. Gilbert, R. P. Allen, D. L. Baldwin, R. D. Bell, J. L. Brimhall, R. G. Clemmer, S. C. Marschman, M. A. McKinnon, R. E. Page, H. G. Powers, S. G. Chalk
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 739-744
Material Properties | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29836
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
To verify the performance of permeation-resistant cladding for tritium targets designed for a New Production Reactor Light-Water Reactor, a tritium test facility was designed, developed, fabricated, and certified. Testing is ongoing to verify the performance of reference-designed targets. Accurate measurements were taken of tritium permeating from barrier-coated cladding specimens immersed in high-temperature autoclaves configured to simulate reactor coolant conditions. The tritium test pressure is controlled by heating a zirconium-alloy getter, previously charged with tritium, to a temperature that corresponds to a specified test pressure. The apparatus for testing deuterium permeation was developed to calibrate nondestructive testing procedures for evaluating barrier quality and to screen defective industrial cladding. These permeation testing facilities perform parametric tests to evaluate the sensitivity of permeation to temperature, time, pressure, fabrication variables, barrier disparities, corrosion, and other factors. The experimental activities characterize the performance and material properties of target rod components as well as validate new nondestructive examination methods that measure target rod quality. The target rod components are 1) barrier-coated stainless steel cladding, 2) lithium aluminate pellets, 3) nickel-plated Zircaloy-4 getters, and 4) zirconium liners. In addition, data generated from statistical testing provide increased confidence in current analytical models that predict target rod performance during both steady state and calculated transient conditions. The test results indicate that the tritium release from a full core of NPR-LWR targets will satisfy design requirements for release of no more than 20,000 Ci of tritium to the reactor coolant, even with four failed target rods that release up to 50% of their inventory.