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Thermal Hydraulics
The division provides a forum for focused technical dialogue on thermal hydraulic technology in the nuclear industry. Specifically, this will include heat transfer and fluid mechanics involved in the utilization of nuclear energy. It is intended to attract the highest quality of theoretical and experimental work to ANS, including research on basic phenomena and application to nuclear system design.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.”
Anisia Bornea, Catalin Petrutiu, Marius Zamfirache
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 67 | Number 2 | March 2015 | Pages 270-273
Proceedings of TRITIUM 2013 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-T8
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The main purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive software, SICA, designed to be used in water-hydrogen liquid phase catalytic exchange process (LPCE). The software calculates the water-gas catalytic isotopic exchange process, following the transfer of any H, D or T isotope from water to gas and vice versa. This software is useful both for design and laboratory-based research; the type of the catalytic filling (ordered or random) can be defined for any of these two cases, the isotopic calculation being specific to the package type. For the laboratory-based research, the performance of a catalytic packing can be determined defining the type and using the experimental results. Performance of the mixed catalytic packing is defined by mass transfer constants for each catalytic and hydrophilic package in that specific arrangement, and also for the isotope whose transfer is studied from one phase to another. Also, it has been established a link between these constants and commonly used parameters for the fillings performance defined by HETP (height equivalent of Theoretical Plate). To demonstrate the availability of the software, we presented a comparative analysis of water-gas catalytic isotopic exchange on a column equipped with three types of filling: successive layers, random or structured (ordered package filled with catalyst). The program can be used for the LPCE process calculation, process used at detritiation facilities for CANDU reactors or fusion reactors.