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  General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
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  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.
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This paper reports the results of chemical reactivity experiments for Be pebbles (2-mm and 0.2-mm diameter) and Be powder (14–31 μm diameter) exposed to steam at elevated temperatures, 350 to 900°C for pebbles and 400 to 500°C for powders. We measured BET specific surface areas of 0.12 m²/g for 2-mm pebbles, 0.24 m²/g for 0.2-mm pebbles and 0.66 to 1.21 m²/g for Be powder samples. These experiments showed a complex reactivity behavior for the material, dependent primarily on the test temperature. Average H₂ generation rates for powder samples, based on measured BET surface areas, were in good agreement with previous measurements for fully-dense CPM-Be. Rates for the Be pebbles, based on measured BET surface areas, were systematically lower than the CPM-Be rates, possibly because of different surface and bulk features for the pebbles, especially surface-layer impurities, that contribute to the measured BET surface area and influence the oxidation process at the material surface.