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ANS Student Conference 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.”
A. Petruzzi, F. D'Auria, W. Giannotti, K. Ivanov
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 149 | Number 2 | February 2005 | Pages 211-236
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE04-26
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The best-estimate calculation results from complex system codes are affected by approximations that are unpredictable without the use of computational tools that account for the various sources of uncertainty.The code with (the capability of) internal assessment of uncertainty (CIAU) has been previously proposed by the University of Pisa to realize the integration between a qualified system code and an uncertainty methodology and to supply proper uncertainty bands each time a nuclear power plant (NPP) transient scenario is calculated. The derivation of the methodology and the results achieved by the use of CIAU are discussed to demonstrate the main features and capabilities of the method.In a joint effort between the University of Pisa and The Pennsylvania State University, the CIAU method has been recently extended to evaluate the uncertainty of coupled three-dimensional neutronics/thermal-hydraulics calculations. The result is CIAU-TN. The feasibility of the approach has been demonstrated, and sample results related to the turbine trip transient in the Peach Bottom NPP are shown. Notwithstanding that the full implementation and use of the procedure requires a database of errors not available at the moment, the results give an idea of the errors expected from the present computational tools.