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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.”
F. Bonelli, L. V. Boccaccini, B.-E. Ghidersa, Q. Kang, L. Savoldi, R. Zanino
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 68 | Number 3 | October 2015 | Pages 507-511
Technical Paper | Proceedings of TOFE-2014 | doi.org/10.13182/FST14-985
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The first 3D thermal-fluid-dynamic and structural analyses done for the design and pre-test assessment of the so-called Thermo-Cycle Mock-up (TCM), reproducing about 0.3 m2 of a flat first wall (FW) with relevant helium cooling channels, are presented, based also on previous computational and experimental activities conducted at KIT but limited so far to a single cooling channel with straight heated length. The TCM is the first of a series of FW mock-ups presently under construction, to be tested starting from 2015 in the large HELOKA facility at KIT. Here, the fluid dynamics in the 180° turns of the TCM cooling channels is investigated together with the effects of heat transfer between neighboring channels, when the plate is subject to steady-state heat fluxes in the range 0.3-0.5 MW/m2. Based on the computed temperature maps, the stresses in the TCM and the related damage figures for the main failure modes (i.e., ratcheting and creep/fatigue) are assessed. These are compared with allowable limits in code and standards for the qualification of the TCM design and related to the prediction of the behavior of the component in the actual fusion environment.