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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.”
S. D. Clarke, S. A. Pozzi, E. Padovani, T. J. Downar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 160 | Number 3 | November 2008 | Pages 370-377
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE160-370
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The most recent release of photonuclear interaction data for Monte Carlo applications is the ENDF/B-VII library. While this current version offers several improvements over its predecessors, it does not address the observed, sometimes quite significant variance in the measured data. For instance, for 238U, the cross-section data in the ENDF/B-VII library is consistently larger than all measurements except for those by Caldwell et al., occasionally by as much as 20%. The objective of the work performed here was to investigate the sensitivity of photoneutron production to perturbations in photonuclear cross-section data. The effect of these perturbations on experimental observables in a common setup was assessed using the MCNPX/MCNP-PoliMi code system. A new methodology was developed and implemented to evaluate the sensitivity of commonly measured parameters to perturbations in photonuclear cross-section data. The results of the analysis show that the maximum variation applied to the cross section (20%) results in an integral detector response change that in general varies between 6 and 8% for the exact configuration considered here. However, the methodology is general and may be readily applied to any source-target configuration.