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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.”
Lorelei Commin, Siegfried Baumgärtner, Bernhard Dafferner, Silvia Heger, Michael Rieth, Anton Möslang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 1 | July-August 2014 | Pages 131-135
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-744
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In future nuclear fusion reactors, structural materials will undergo a large thermal cycling due to pulsed operation and the occurrence of several maintenance periods. Therefore, the investigation of the combined role of creep and fatigue loading is of major importance. In this study, we focused on Eurofer 3 electron beam welds. Two different post-welding heat treatments were carried out: a two-step heat treatment (30 minutes at 980°C followed by 2 hours at 750°C) and a one-step heat treatment (2 hours at 750°C). Fatigue, creep and creep-fatigue tests were performed. A 550°C test temperature was chosen, corresponding to the upper operation temperature currently foreseen for this material. Creep-fatigue experiments were achieved by interrupting a fatigue test and then applying a creep loading until the fracture of the specimen. Several fatigue pre-stress conditions were studied. The post-weld heat treatment influence was analyzed. The damage contributions of fatigue and creep were studied using electron microscopy. The results were compared to previous results obtained on base material.