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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.”
Zongwei Wang, Dangzhong Gao, Xiaojun Ma, Jie Meng
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 3 | November 2014 | Pages 432-437
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-808
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new technique based on a vertical scanning white-light interferometry is developed for measuring fuel pressure in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) multiple-shell polymer-microsphere targets. Nuclear fuel pressure is an essential parameter for estimating fusion efficiency in ICF experiments. This parameter is difficult to determine because of complicated target structures, short measurement time, relatively short optical path length changes, and expansion of the target after pressurization. To reduce the effects due to changes in diameter, a model is proposed to correct for the expansion at the radial orientation for multiple-shell polymer microspheres. The model is compared to a destructive method, and D2 fill pressure accuracy is confirmed within a 10% error of uncertainty.
