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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.”
Penzhorn R.-D., Berndt U., Kirste E., Hellriegel W., Jung W., Pejsa R., Romer O.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 3 | October 1995 | Pages 723-731
Tritium Processing | Proceedings of the Fifth Topical Meeting on Tritium Technology in Fission, Fusion, and Isotopic Applications Belgirate, Italy May 28-June 3, 1995 | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30490
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
During commissioning of the PETRA facility all components were tested singly and sequentially using hydrogen isotopes (incl. up to 1.3 g tritium as DT) and relevant impurities. The operation of the facility in conjunction with the required infrastructure systems of the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe (TLK) was also demonstrated. To characterize the PETRA PdAg permeator hydrogen break-through curves for H2, De2 and DT as well as He break-through curves for various H2/D2/He gas mixtures were determined at 300 and 400 °C. A suitable method was developed to verify the mechanical integrity of the permeator during runs with tritium. The H2 and D2 permeation losses into the isolation vacuum of the permeator were quantified and compared with model calculations. Hydrogen permeation into the isolation vacuum could be kept at levels low enough to permit an undisturbed continuous operation of the permeator using a ZrCo tritium storage vessel. All pumps and pump combinations were examined with respect to the achievable vacua and compression ratios employing relevant gases and their mixtures. Loop-integrated infrared analysis of high signal and background stability is used to verify the integrity of the permeator and to study the possible occurrence of radiochemical reactions in the gas phase. It was shown that the ZrCo tritium storage vessel of the PETRA facility can be employed avantageously for the handling of tritium when used in combination with a Normetex scroll pump (18 m3/h)/Siemens metal bellows double stage compressor pump sequence. With this combination it is possible to extract at < 320 °C > 98 % of the hydrogen isotopes from the ZrCo storage vessel with a) negligible permeation losses, b) without the danger of disproportionation of the intermetallic compound and c) with minimization of the tritium inventory in the facility.
