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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.”
Jonah D. Duran, Ezekial A. Unterberg, Mike P. Zach, William R. Wampler, Dmitry L. Rudakov, David C. Donovan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 75 | Number 6 | August 2019 | Pages 493-498
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1610316
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High-Z impurities released from plasma-material interactions have been shown to limit the performance of fusion plasmas, and understanding these impurity transport mechanisms throughout the plasma scrape-off layer is a major challenge. Presented herein is a study of tungsten (W) erosion and transport by uniquely measuring absolute quantities of isotopic W in order to determine the source of natural and enriched 182W isotopes that have traveled throughout the tokamak discharges on the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics. Two primary analysis methods have been implemented to characterize this W on graphite collector probes that were inserted into DIII-D’s outboard midplane. Results from experiments using Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) have measured W particle areal densities down the centerline of the probes as high as 6E14 atoms/cm2 with a detection limit of 1E12 atoms/cm2. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LAMS) has confirmed the elemental trends found with RBS and has provided additional insight into collector probe surface profiles. Two-dimensional elemental and isotopic maps from LAMS are used to reveal new collector probe features and further refine the source of collected W. Variations in isotopic profiles and total W content are coupled to (a) the face of the probe being analyzed, (b) the dimensions of the probe, and (c) the plasma pulse parameters that were used during probe exposure. These results provide one-of-a-kind empirical evidence that is now being utilized for validation of tokamak impurity transport through theoretical models and in codes such as 3D-LIM and OEDGE.