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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.”
Tomohiko Asai, Fuji Kodera, Tomohiro Yoneda, Mamoru Okubo, Shigefumi Okada, Seiichi Goto
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 39 | Number 1 | January 2001 | Pages 366-369
Poster Presentations | doi.org/10.13182/FST01-A11963482
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The first experiments of neutral beam (NB) injection into a field-reversed configuration (FRC) plasma have been performed at FIX (FRC Injection Experiment) device.1 The experimental results show that the configuration lifetime of a FRC have been expanded by about 200% compared with no NB injection case. These results indicate that several hundred kilo watts of NB injection saves several mega watts of global energy losses. For understanding these experimental phenomena, some numerical calculations have been performed. Numerically calculated ionization degree vs. distance along beam injection axis and beam trajectories show that the injected beam ions form dense regions around minimum │B│. These formed hot beam ions walls would play a role in improving these confinements on the edge layer. Some previous theoretical studies pointed out the existence of electrostatic effects in the FRC edge plasma confinements.6, 7 Since only several kilo watts NB injection improves FRC confinement, it seems that the injected hot beam ions encourage electrostatic effects on the edge layer.
