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Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.”
Gian Piero Celata, Maurizio Cumo, Andrea Mariani, Giuseppe Zummo
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 29 | Number 4 | July 1996 | Pages 499-511
Technical Paper | Blanket Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A30693
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new model is presented for the prediction of the critical heat flux (CHF) of subcooled flow boiling based on a liquid-sublayer dryout mechanism, i.e., the dryout of a thin, liquid layer beneath an intermittent vapor blanket due to the coalescence of small bubbles. The model focuses on the analysis of the CHF in subcooled flow boiling under conditions of very high mass flux and liquid subcooling, typical of fusion reactor thermal-hydraulic design, and is characterized by the absence of empirical constants always present in earlier models. Peripheral nonuniform heating and/or twisted-tape inserts are accounted for in the model, which was originally developed for uniform heating and straight flow. The simultaneous occurrence of the two events is also well predicted by the model. Although initially formulated for operating conditions typical of the thermal-hydraulic design of fusion reactor high-heat-flux components, the model is proven to be able to satisfactorily predict the CHF under more general conditions, provided local thermodynamic conditions of the bulk flow at the CHF are sufficiently far from the saturated state.