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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.”
R. C. Haight, S. M. Grimes, R. G. Johnson, H. H. Barschal
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 87 | Number 1 | May 1984 | Pages 41-47
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE84-A17444
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Energy and angular distributions of alpha particles from the bombardment of carbon foils with 14.1-MeV neutrons were measured with a magnetic spectrometer. The observations included alpha particles with energies above 1 MeV emitted at angles between 19 and 135 deg. The cross section for alpha-particle emission obtained by integrating over emission angle was 402 ± 46 mb. From these data and from evaluations of the elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections, a kerma factor (energy deposition) of 1.84 ± 0.16 × 10−9 cGy·cm2 was deduced. The present cross section for the 12C(n,n′3α) reaction is much lower than previous measurements.
