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This division promotes the development and timely introduction of fusion energy as a sustainable energy source with favorable economic, environmental, and safety attributes. The division cooperates with other organizations on common issues of multidisciplinary fusion science and technology, conducts professional meetings, and disseminates technical information in support of these goals. Members focus on the assessment and resolution of critical developmental issues for practical fusion energy applications.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.”
M. M. R. Williams
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 160 | Number 2 | October 2008 | Pages 253-260
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE160-253
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The resonance integrals and associated temperature coefficients in a mixture of graphite and randomly dispersed grains of ThO2 are calculated. Two methods of dealing with the random distribution of grains are used. The first is one developed by Lane, Nordheim, and Sampson, which is based upon a random Dancoff factor, and the second uses the dichotomic Markov process. The numerical results are compared for a range of grain sizes and ranges of temperature. The differences in the two methods do not exceed 4% for resonance integrals and 2.5% for temperature coefficients. Bearing in mind the radically different stochastic procedures involved, it is remarkable and useful to know that the results are so insensitive to the stochastic model used. In addition we give a measure of the variance in the results.