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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
Edward A. Hoffman, Weston M. Stacey, Nolan E. Hertel
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 31 | Number 1 | January 1997 | Pages 35-62
Technical Paper | Materials Engineering | doi.org/10.13182/FST97-A30779
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Results from the present physics, materials, and blanket research and development programs are combined with physics and engineering design constraints to characterize candidate tokamak demonstration plant (DEMO) designs. Blanket designs based on the principal structural materials, breeding materials, and coolants being developed for the DEMO were adapted from the literature. Neutron flux and activation calculations were performed, and several radioactive waste disposal indexes were evaluated for each design. Of the primary low-activation structural materials under development in the United States, it appears that vanadium and ferritic steel alloys and possibly silicon carbide could lead to DEMO designs that could satisfy realistic low-level waste (LLW) criteria, provided that impurities can be controlled within plausible limits. Allowable LLW concentrations are established for the limiting alloying and impurity elements. All breeding materials and neutron multipliers considered meet the ELW criterion.