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ANS Student Conference 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.”
Jianhang Zhou, Jinglong Zhang, Jie Zhang, Yipo Zhang, Hong Yang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 78 | Number 7 | October 2022 | Pages 588-594
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2090785
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron flux measurement provides essential data for the diagnostic tools that control plasma combustion, equipment maintenance, and radiation safety and reveals key information on plasma physics, machine protection, and control issues. To obtain rapid change of the neutron emission rate by magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, a fast neutron flux measurement system with high time resolution (~10 ) was developed on the HL-2M tokamak (located at Southwestern Institute of Physics, China). The system includes four EJ-410 detectors and four digitizers that we developed ourselves with dedicated field-programmable gate array firmware, including a waveform recording function, real-time count rate measurement, and real-time integration measurement. The simulation results show that the throughput rate of the readout electronics is 96.7% when the input counting rate is 1 mega count per second (Mcps) and the throughput rate could achieve 63.8% when the input counting rate is 6 Mcps. Moreover, when the input counting rate increases further to 10 Mcps, the integration model may be used. Given that this measurement system is highly portable and has a high time resolution, it is suitable for the fast neutron flux diagnostic on the HL-2A tokamak.
