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This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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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.”
M. Z. Youssef, M. E. Sawan
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 4 | May 2005 | Pages 1038-1045
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A824
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutronics testing is among the several types of fusion technology testing scheduled to be performed in ITER. The three ports assigned for testing will test several blanket concepts proposed by the various parties with test blanket modules (TBM) that utilize different breeders and coolants. Nevertheless, neutronics issues to be resolved in ITER-TBM are generic in nature and are important to each TBM type. Dedicated neutronics tests specifically address the accuracy involved in predicting key neutronics parameters such as tritium production rate, TPR, volumetric heating rate, induced activation and decay heat, and radiation damage to the reactor components. In this paper, we address some strategies for performing the neutronics tests. Tritium self-sufficiency cannot be confirmed by testing in ITER, however, the testing can provide valuable information regarding the main parameters needed to assess the feasibility of achieving tritium self-sufficiency. The paper also addresses the operational requirement (i.e. flux and fluence) as well as the geometrical requirement of the test module (i.e. minimum size) in order to have meaningful and useful tests. Measured neutronics data require high spatial resolution. This necessitates that the measured quantity be as flat as possible in the innermost locations inside the test module. This requirement has been confirmed in the present work based on results from two-dimensional calculations. The US and Japan solid breeder test blanket modules are placed inside half a port in ITER. The R- model used accounts for the presence of the ITER shielding blanket and the surrounding frame of the port.