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Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.”
J. L. Cook, A. L. Wall
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 31 | Number 2 | February 1968 | Pages 234-240
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A18235
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The thermal radiative capture cross sections of 87 nuclides were computed using a Monte Carlo selection of reduced neutron widths, and the assumption that distant resonance levels determine the cross section. Histograms of possible cross-section values were prepared for each nuclide, and the 87 samples analyzed to find the overall accuracy of estimation. The results indicated a fluctuation of 0.4 ± 0.6 for the logarithm of the ratio of experiment to the calculated mean cross section. Tables of results for means and standard deviations are given together with the results of Keane's summation formula. The possible use of this technique in estimating unknown cross sections is discussed.
