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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.”
S. Brezinsek, A. Huber, S. Jachmich, A. Pospieszczyk, B. Schweer, G. Sergienko
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 2 | February 2005 | Pages 209-219
Technical Paper | TEXTOR: Diagnostics | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A701
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The exploration of plasma-wall-interaction physics is one of the major tasks of the tokamak TEXTOR. A characterization of the high-temperature plasma edge is essential to interpret the interaction processes of the different charged and uncharged particles in the boundary layer. In the design of the TEXTOR, much effort was made to optimize diagnostic access to the plasma edge for the best possible characterization. The major part of the plasma edge diagnostics presented here is based on passive and active spectroscopy, in addition to different types of electrical probes. Thereby, pioneering work has been achieved in both fields.In passive emission spectroscopy, the work concentrated on the determination of particle fluxes of different types of atomic (W, Si, C, . . .) and molecular (D2, CD, C2, . . .) species from the corresponding photon fluxes at different locations and on the visualization of the local impurity sources by means of two-dimensional imaging. The active spectroscopy with atomic beams was focused on the determination of plasma edge parameters (ne, Te, Ti, . . .) with good spatial and temporal resolution. Therefore, different techniques like thermal Li and He beams, suprathermal Li beams - realized by laser blow-off techniques - and hydrogen neutral beam injectors have been employed. Furthermore, laser-induced fluorescence measurements in the ultraviolet and in the vacuum ultraviolet ranges, which were for the first time performed in a fusion plasma, are presented. The continuous improvement of the different plasma edge diagnostics over more than a decade of TEXTOR plasma operation with different types of first-wall materials is discussed.