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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.”
C. E. Kessel, F. M. Poli, K. Ghantous, N. N. Gorelenkov, M. E. Rensink, T. D. Rognlien, P. B. Snyder, H. St. John, A. D. Turnbull
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 1 | January 2015 | Pages 75-106
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-795
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The advanced physics and advanced technology tokamak power plant ARIES-ACT1 has a major radius of 6.25 m at an aspect ratio of 4.0, toroidal field of 6.0 T, strong shaping with elongation of 2.2, and triangularity of 0.63. The broadest pressure cases reached wall-stabilized βN ∼ 5.75, limited by n = 3 external kink mode requiring a conducting shell at b/a = 0.3, requiring plasma rotation, feedback, and/or kinetic stabilization. The medium pressure peaking case reaches βN = 5.28 with BT = 6.75, while the peaked pressure case reaches βN < 5.15. Fast particle magnetohydrodynamic stability shows that the alpha particles are unstable, but this leads to redistribution to larger minor radius rather than loss from the plasma. Edge and divertor plasma modeling shows that 75% of the power to the divertor can be radiated with an ITER-like divertor geometry, while >95% can be radiated in a stable detached mode with an orthogonal target and wide slot geometry. The bootstrap current fraction is 91% with a q95 of 4.5, requiring ∼1.1 MA of external current drive. This current is supplied with 5 MW of ion cyclotron radio frequency/fast wave and 40 MW of lower hybrid current drive. Electron cyclotron is most effective for safety factor control over ρ ∼ 0.2 to 0.6 with 20 MW. The pedestal density is ∼0.9×1020/m3, and the temperature is ∼4.4 keV. The H98 factor is 1.65, n/nGr = 1.0, and the ratio of net power to threshold power is 2.8 to 3.0 in the flattop.