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Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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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.”
D. M. Keaveney, T. J. Krieger, M. L. Storm
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 4 | Number 3 | September 1958 | Pages 332-340
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE58-A25532
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The selection of appropriate epithermal group-averaged cross sections for use in a few-group criticality calculation is particularly difficult when resonance absorbers are present. However, by use of the SOFOCATE code for the calculation of thermal spectra in hydrogenous media, it is now practical to include low-lying resonances below 2 ev in the thermal group. Since the SOFOCATE code, which is based on the Wigner-Wilkins differential equation for monatomic hydrogen thermalization, has yielded good agreement with measured spectra in water, it is felt that use of this code and inclusion of low-lying resonances in the thermal group constitute a more accurate and convenient method of treating these resonances than other procedures. As an application of the method, a study has been made of some of the effects associated with the use of Eu as a means of reducing the temperature defect in water-moderated reactors. It is shown that the use of natural, unshielded Eu would reduce the temperature defect provided the spectral hardening introduced by the core absorption is sufficiently small. It is also shown that the strong dependence on spectral hardening is due to the presence of the Eu resonances at about 0.4 ev.
