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Division Spotlight
Education, Training & Workforce Development
The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.”
Man-Shik Song, Paul J. Turinsky
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 101 | Number 2 | February 1989 | Pages 117-132
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE89-A23601
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An improved understanding of boiling film dynamics as it relates to energetic steam explosions during degraded core conditions in light water reactors is developed. Several models have been developed and used to predict the characteristics of film boiling when a molten fuel drop suddenly comes into contact with water. An incompressible model and an approximate compressible model, utilizing Gilmore’s equation, are developed consistent with past works and are determined to have several shortfalls. To improve the treatment of compressibility effects, a model employing Lagrang-ian equations is developed. This improved model predicts that applying an external pressure pulse can make a stable film go unstable and decreasing water subcooling stabilizes film oscillations; both predictions are consistent with experimental observations. However, the improved model predicts stable film boiling at low melt temperatures that cannot support such boiling. Modeling Taylor surface instability effects at the water/steam interface indicates that the surface area change due to this surface instability can stabilize the film oscillations.