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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
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 1 | January 2015 | Pages 220-239
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-793
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conservative physics and conservative technology tokamak power plant ARIES-ACT2 has a major radius of 9.75 m at an aspect ratio of 4.0 and has strong shaping with elongation of 2.2 and triangularity of 0.63. The plasma current is 14 MA, and the toroidal field at the plasma major radius is 8.75 T, making the maximum field at the toroidal field coil 16 T. The no-wall βN reaches ∼2.4, limited by n = 1 external kink mode, and can be extended to 3.2 with a stabilizing shell behind the ring structure shield. The bootstrap current fraction is 77% with a q95 of 8.0, requiring ∼4.0 MA of external current drive. This current is supplied with 30 MW of ion cyclotron radio frequency/fast wave and 80 MW of negative ion neutral beams. Up to 1.0 MA can be driven with lower hybrid (LH) with no wall, and 1.5 or more MA can be driven with a stabilizing shell. Electron cyclotron was examined and is most effective for safety factor control over ρ ∼0.2 to 0.6 with 20 MW. The pedestal density is ∼0.65 × 1020/m3, and the temperature is ∼9.0 keV. The H98 factor is 1.25, n/nGr = 1.3, and the net power to LH threshold power is 1.3 to 1.4 in the flattop. Because of the high toroidal field and high central temperature, the cyclotron radiation loss was found to be high depending on the first-wall reflectivity.
