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Isotopes & Radiation
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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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.”
M. R. Mendelson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 28 | Number 1 | April 1967 | Pages 127-132
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A18675
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The sensitivity of three thermal-energy model problems to anisotropic scattering was investigated by comparing double P5 solutions with P3 and P1 scattering expansions. Results indicate that P3 scattering effects can be significant in the calculation of absorption rates in certain sensitive plane-geometry configurations. Monte Carlo calculations were also performed for one of these problems, using two different anisotropic scattering representations: the transport approximation; and a “histogram” kernel, which match the first two and four Legendre moments of the scattering kernel, respectively. The transport approximation was found to give discrepancies of eight to nine percent in thermal absorption rates, and it is concluded that this scattering representation can lead to serious errors in Monte Carlo calculations.