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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.”
E. Barnard, N. A. Khan, R. C. F. Mclatchie, M. J. Poole, J. H. Tait
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 17 | Number 4 | December 1963 | Pages 513-522
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE63-A18441
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the experiment to be described the 28 Mev electron linac at Harwell was used as a neutron source to produce 1 µsec bursts of 1011 electrons 160 times per second. A natural uranium target was placed centrally against one face of a 60 cm x 62.2 cm x 71.1 cm graphite block, and a neutron beam extracted from a channel running into the center of the block. This beam was interrupted by a slow chopper running in synchronism with the pulses from the accelerator. In this way 100 µsec “time samples” of the neutrons in the block were taken and their spectrum determined by the time-of-the-flight method. The instant of the “time sample” relative to the fast neutron pulse could be varied by an electronic delay circuit. Neutron spectra are presented for the time varying between 300 µsec and 1000 µsec after the pulse. These spectra differ from the Maxwellian shape but approach asymptotically to a “cooled Maxwellian” from which they are indistinguishable after 1000 µsec. Detailed calculations of the spectra have been made using an IBM 7090 computer to obtain a numerical solution of the time and energy dependent diffusion equation; using a scattering kernel based on the scattering measurements made at Chalk River. The experimental results are also compared with spectra using a scattering kernel based on the heavy gas model with a fictitious mass of 33.