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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.”
H. Takahashi, A. Okamoto, T. Takahashi, S. Kitajima
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 1 | July 2015 | Pages 190-195
Technical Note | Open Magnetic Systems 2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-910
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This technical note reports the first experimental investigation aiming for divertor plasma dynamics study using helium recombining plasma and energetic helium ion beam. A divertor plasma relevant experiment was performed using a linear plasma device, DT-ALPHA, and a multicusp ion source. The radial profiles of the line emission intensities from helium Rydberg atoms were investigated, and the reaction rate of volumetric recombination was confirmed to increase in the central region of the cylindrical plasma. Then an energetic helium ion beam was superimposed onto the helium recombining plasma. The optical emission intensities from the helium recombining plasma with and without energetic ions were obtained and compared. The temporal evolution of the optical emission indicated that charge-exchange momentum transfer between energetic helium ions and ground state helium atoms can affect population density even in recombining plasma where population density is dominated by recombining processes rather than ionizing processes.