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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.”
Swe-Kai Chen, Chi-Meen Wan, En-Hwei Liu, Shuh-Bair Chu, Chi-Yung Liang, Liq-Ji Yuan, Chi-Chiao Wan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 29 | Number 2 | March 1996 | Pages 302-305
Technical Note | Nuclear Data | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A30716
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Microstructural studies were conducted on palladium specimens that were taken from ambient-temperature heavy water and elevated-temperature molten-salt electrolytic experiments. Both scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to investigate the surface and interior portions of these specimens. A subgrain structure could be observed by SEM on the surface along the longitudinal direction and on the surface taken from the cross section of the deuterium-charged specimen rod; the thermoelectrochemical etching process was consequently applied to the deuterium-charged specimen rod. A TEM bright field and selected area diffraction pattern technique verified that dislocation cells and subgrains exist in the deuterium-charged specimens. If cold fusion effects exist in the palladium microstructure, which consists of dislocation cells and subgrains, understanding the cold fusion phenomenon in the microstructure is necessary, and pursuant to this understanding, electrolytic experiments of a palladium rod in molten salt and of heavy water may be useful.