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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.”
Peter T. Sheehey, Joyce A. Guzik, Ronald C. Kirkpatrick, Irvin R. Lindemuth, David W. Scudder, Jack S. Shlachter, Frederick J. Wysocki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1355-1359
Innovative Approaches to Fusion Energy | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963137
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF), a preheated and magnetized target plasma is hydrodynamically compressed to fusion conditions.1,2 Because the magnetic field suppresses losses by electron thermal conduction in the fuel during the target implosion heating process, the compression may be over a much longer time scale than in traditional inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Bigger targets and much lower initial target densities than in ICF can be used, reducing radiative energy losses. Therefore, “liner-on-plasma” compressions, driven by relatively inexpensive electrical pulsed power, may be practical. Potential MTF target plasmas must meet minimum temperature, density, and magnetic field starting conditions, and must remain relatively free of high-Z radiation-cooling-enhancing contaminants. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, computational and experimental research is being pursued into MTF target plasmas, such as deuterium-fiber-initiated Z-pinches,3 and the Russian-originated “MAGO” plasma.4 In addition, liner-on-plasma compressions of such target plasmas to fusion conditions are being computationally modeled, and experimental investigation of such heavy liner implosions has begun. The status of the research will be presented.