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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.”
Glen R. Longhurst, Alex Kratville
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 3 | November 2014 | Pages 385-393
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-801
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simple laboratory experiment was constructed to demonstrate in a classroom setting hydrogen permeation under conditions typical of some nuclear applications. The goal was to allow students to find both solubility and diffusivity parameters for hydrogen moving through commercial stainless steel tubing. The purpose of the present work is to compare test results from this laboratory experiment with results from others to validate the experiment. Hydrogen mixed with argon was admitted to a heated test chamber containing a coiled Type 316 stainless steel tube. Pure argon sweep gas was passed through the tube to a process-gas mass spectrometer where composition transients of pertinent gas species were recorded. Fits of a theoretical transient model to the experimental data gave values of both diffusivity and solubility of hydrogen in the stainless steel tube. Tests were conducted at hydrogen partial pressures ranging from 1.7 to 83 kPa and tube temperatures from 636 to 770 K. The form of the permeation transient data was fit well by a classical theoretical model. Observed values of diffusivity and solubility of hydrogen in the stainless steel from these transients were similar to literature values with some notable differences. Evidence of permeation delay due to interference by the diluting Ar was observed. Limitations of the experimental system are discussed.
