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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.”
M. Z. Youssef, A. Kumar, M. A. Abdou, Y. Watanabe, M. Nakagawa, K. Kosako, T. Mori, Y. Oyama, C. Konno, Y. Ikeda, H. Maekawa, T. Nakamura
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 28 | Number 2 | September 1995 | Pages 243-272
Technical Paper | Fusion Neutronics Integral Experiments — Part II / Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST95-A30645
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The integral experiments and postanalyses performed in Phase IIC of the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE)/Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) collaborative program on fusion neutronics focused on test blankets that include the actual heterogeneities found in several blanket designs. In one arrangement, multi-layers of Li2O and beryllium were placed in an edge-on, horizontally alternating configuration, and in the second arrangement, vertical water coolant channels were deployed. The main objective has been to examine the accuracy of predicting key parameters such as tritium production rate (TPR), in-system spectrum, and other reaction rates around these heterogeneities and to experimentally verify the enhancement in TPR by beryllium in the first experiment. The prediction accuracy was examined in terms of calculated-to-experimental values (c/e)i of the neutronics parameters at several spatial locations. Average local (c/e)i values were statistically calculated for TPR from Li-6 (T6) and from Li-7 (T7) in addition to quantifying the prediction uncertainties in the line-integrated TPR. A relationship was developed between the prediction uncertainty in the integrated TPR and the corresponding values in the total breeding zone. This relationship enabled us to identify which subzone contributes the most to the prediction uncertainty in the overall integrated TPR.