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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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. Sawan, A. Ibrahim, T. Bohm, P. Wilson
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 756-760
Nuclear Analysis | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9000
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The High Average Power Laser (HAPL) power plant has targets that are directly driven by forty KrF laser beams. Three-dimensional neutronics calculations were performed directly in the exact CAD model of the HAPL final optics system to assess the impact of the biological shielding configuration on the nuclear environment at the GIMM and dielectric focusing and turning mirrors. In the initial configuration, the biological shield fully encloses the GIMM sand associated dielectric mirrors. We assessed another configuration where the shield is moved farther from the target to fully enclose the dielectric mirrors leaving the GIMM in the open space between the chamber and the biological shield. A variation of this configuration utilizes 40 neutron traps attached to the inner surface of the biological shield behind the GIMMs. It is concluded that the shielding configuration with all optics including the GIMM being fully enclosed in the biological shield is the preferred option since it results in the lowest nuclear environment at the dielectric mirrors, provides better GIMM support, reduces the volume to be maintained under vacuum, and requires the least amount of concrete shield.
