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Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.”
Paul W. Fisher
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 21 | Number 2 | March 1992 | Pages 794-799
Material; Storage and Processing | doi.org/10.13182/FST92-A29845
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The tritium proof-of-principle (TPOP) experiment was designed and built by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to demonstrate the formation and acceleration of the world's first tritium pellets for fueling of future fusion reactors. Many parameters measured during the course of the experiment have been used to evaluate the physical properties of solid tritium. Pellet size was measured as a function of equilibrium fill pressure. A model was developed to predict this information from values of thermal conductivity, vapor pressure, and density reported in the literature. Good agreement between theory and experiment was found for both deuterium and tritium pellets. Evaluation of breakaway pressure data for deuterium pellets indicates that the shear strength of deuterium is about equal to its ultimate tensile strength. Tritium shear strength appears to be about twice that of deuterium at temperatures around 8 K. The reduction in pellet diameter due to barrel erosion for deuterium was about twice that for tritium pellets at a given velocity. This was also indicative of the greater strength of tritium relative to deuterium.