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Fusion Science and Technology
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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.”
A.A. Kabantsev, V.B. Reva, V.G. Sokolov
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 35 | Number 1 | January 1999 | Pages 185-189
Oral Presentations | doi.org/10.13182/FST99-A11963848
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We report the first experimental verification of the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) dynamo in the axisymmetric linear machine. The dynamo phenomenon, in which the magnetic-field-aligned electric current is self-generated by plasma dynamics, has been a puzzle not only in astrophysical plasmas, but also in magnetically confined laboratory plasmas for many decades. The mirror trap axisymmetric plasma, in which the unstable differential rotation of plasma column in crossed E×B fields excites the helical MHD turbulence, is a new and particularly vivid example of the dynamo effect.
By manipulating the trap's magnetic and plasma conditions, we have obtained both the parallel and the antiparallel to the magnetic field electric current with density to the order of 100 A/cm2 (total current up to 6 kA) in the plasma. The measured mean electromotive force Fem has linear dependence from the turbulent diffusion coefficient DT (r,t) and reachs up to 50 V/m. By measuring each term of Fem, the parallel MHD mean-field Ohm's law has been observed to hold within experimental error bars during plasma flow pulse. A comprehensive physical picture of the dynamo phenomenon has been obtained.
