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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.”
Satoshi Sato, Hideyuki Takatsu, Yasushi Seki, Toshihisa Utsumi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1129-1133
Neutronics Experiments and Analyses | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963100
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Shielding analyses of the inboard blanket, the vacuum vessel and the Toroidal Field Coil (TFC) in International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor OTTER) were performed by Monte Carlo and 2-dimensional discrete ordinate methods taking the radiation streaming through the 20 mm wide gap between the adjacent blanket modules into account, and their peak nuclear responses were evaluated The nuclear responses of the TFC could fully satisfy the radiation limits. On the other hand, the helium production rates of the branch pipe, the leg and the front surface of the vacuum vessel behind the gap were about 2-3 times higher than the radiation limit at the end of the operation, i.e. the neutron fluence of 3 MWa/m2. So the shielding module is required to be increased by 80 mm to satisfy the radiation limit. Also, shielding analyses for 20 - 100 mm wide gaps were performed, and it was found that the gap width could be increased by up to 50 mm from the TFCs protection for their peak nuclear responses point of view.