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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.”
Alan B. Rothman, Charles E. W. Ward
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 12 | Number 2 | February 1962 | Pages 293-300
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26070
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new measurement of the effective resonance integral of thorium metal has been made, using reactor oscillator techniques. Fluctuations in reactor power level, caused by oscillation of cadmium-shielded cylindrical samples, were recorded on a strip chart. The signal was Fourier-analyzed, and the coefficient of the fundamental mode determined. For a constant shape reactivity input, the value of this coefficient for each sample is proportional to the effective resonance integral of the sample. The scattering effects of the thorium were determined by oscillating identical samples of lead, and were deducted from the results for the thorium. Absolute calibration of the oscillator measurements was provided by oscillating several dilute solutions of each of three standard absorbers : boron, indium, and gold. The effective resonance integrals of the thorium cylinders were then found to be given by the formula: where S/M is the surface-to-mass ratio of the samples in cm2/gm. The 1/v component of the resonance integral, 3.6 barns, has been removed from the first term of this formula.
