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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.”
Takumi Hayashi et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 2 | August 2009 | Pages 836-840
Tritium Breeding | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A9014
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to investigate the function of water molecule for tritium transport behavior on the water-metal boundary, a series of experiments of tritium permeation into humid atmosphere was performed through pure iron piping with different surfaces of oxide etc., which contained about 1 kPa of pure tritium gas at 423 K. Chemical forms of tritium permeated into water were monitored continuously under purging outer jacket by <1000ppm of water vapor in Ar. Observation of metal surfaces was also carried out by Secondary Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The results were compared with those permeated into pressurized liquid water at 423 K.The actual tritium permeation rate into Ar with <1000 ppm of water vapor was not clearly changed that into liquid water. In the vapor atmosphere, a magnetite layer did not grow on the surface clearly, and tritium permeation rate and chemical species (∼100% of HTO) through pure iron piping with mechanically polished surface were not changed drastically comparing with data with a magnetite surface. On the other hand, hydrogen gas (HT) fraction of tritium permeated into the outer jacket increased drastically in case of a gold plating surface.
