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The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.”
Magnus Schlösser, KATRIN Collaboration
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 3 | April 2020 | Pages 170-178
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2019.1668253
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN) aims for a model-independent measurement of the neutrino mass scale with a sensitivity of 0.2 eV/c2 (90% confidence limit). This is made possible by using an ultrastable, high-luminosity windowless gaseous tritium source providing 1011 beta decays per second and a high-resolution integrating spectrometer with a resolution of <1 eV. Over the past years, the system was installed at the Tritium Laboratory Karlsruhe and commissioned in various stages while demonstrating the outstanding performance of the magnetic guiding, electron transmission, and stability of individual subsystems. In 2018, the KATRIN beamline was operated with traces of tritium for the very first time. In this campaign, first beta decay spectra could be recorded. This was essential to validate the physics model and the fitting methods of the KATRIN analysis. Furthermore, in the campaign it was demonstrated that the global KATRIN stability of 0.1% in this configuration was successfully reached. Based on these results—as well as those from a subsequent systematic calibration campaign—KATRIN is now performing neutrino mass measurement runs at nominal tritium purity.