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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
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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. L. French, L. G. Mooney
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 47 | Number 3 | March 1972 | Pages 375-380
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE72-A22425
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The “last-collision” method for computing the air-ground interface effect on scattered neutron intensity is extended to give the effect on the intensity within individual polar angle groups at a detector near the ground. The method yields angle-dependent perturbation factors which can be used to adjust infinite-air angle distributions to account for the presence of an air-ground interface, or to adjust angle distributions from one detector height to another. To determine the factors, a uniform scattering distribution in the air about the detector is assumed, and the fractional contribution from each last-collision center in the air is calculated. In addition, the fraction scattered directly to the detector from the ground surface is calculated using a simplified albedo model. An evaluation of the angle-dependent last-collision model indicated that the results of discrete ordinate calculations for infinite air could be modified to give relative polar angle distributions of the scattered neutron dose near the air-ground interface within 10 to 20% of those calculated directly for the air-over-ground case by the discrete ordinate method.