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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.”
S. W. Yoon, A. C. England, W. C. Kim, H. Yonekawa, J. G. Bak, B. H. Park, J. Kim, K. I. You, Y. M. Jeon, S. H. Hahn, Y. K. Oh, J. Chung, K. D. Lee, H. J. Lee, J. A. Leuer, and N. W. Eidietis
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 65 | Number 3 | May 2014 | Pages 372-383
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-706
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
KSTAR has a nonlinear magnetic material, INCOLOY® alloy 908 (Incoloy), in toroidal field and poloidal field (PF) coil systems. The effect of Incoloy on the magnetic configuration for the plasma initiation was investigated with systematic magnetic field measurements, finite element model (FEM) calculations, and in situ measurements of the magnetic properties. The profile of the vertical field near the field-null center was measured with a vertically movable electron beam (e-beam) probe and Hall sensor arrays in addition to pickup coils in the vacuum vessel. The measured profiles of the additional fields from Incoloy in the PF coils are in good agreement with the FEM calculations. In a typical KSTAR startup configuration, the effect of Incoloy is significant. First, it degrades the connection length significantly due to an additional vertical field in the field-null region, and second, it changes the radial and vertical stabilities by modifying the radial gradient of the vertical field. Initial up-down asymmetry measurements of the vertical fields showed very small static error fields from the PF coils. Calculations suggest that the main sources of the measured downshift of the plasma column are asymmetric eddy currents in the cryostat.
