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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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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.”
Michael L. Corradini
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 84 | Number 3 | July 1983 | Pages 196-205
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE83-A17789
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The phenomenon of film destabilization due to an externally applied pressure transient has been investigated experimentally by Inoue and Bankoff. This film collapse process is of interest with regard to vapor explosions. An important step in vapor explosions is believed to be the onset of the rapid heat transfer between the molten fuel and coolant caused by pressure-pulse-induced film boiling destabilization. A dynamic film boiling model was developed to analyze film destabilization, and to predict from Inoue's experiment over a range of initial pressures and final shock pressures, shock rise times, and heater surface temperatures. The model indicated three important results. 1. The nonequilibrium model shows better quantitative agreement with the data while the equilibrium model generally underpredicts the peak heat flux qp by a factor of 2 to 3 for short shock rise times (τp ≈ 80 µs). 2. Both models neglect the effect of interface distortions due to Taylor instabilities. This physical effect should increase the predicted values of the peak heat flux. 3. The film collapse process can be successfully modeled using an equilibrium model for shock rise times >100 µs and is in agreement with the nonequilibrium model. One possible inference from this analysis is that the suppression of vapor explosions due to initial conditions (e.g., ambient pressure) is caused by the increasing difficulty of collapsing the vapor film. Thus, to overcome the effects of these initial conditions, a more energetic trigger needs to be applied to destabilize the film and to induce the explosion.