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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. Tudora, F.-J. Hambsch, S. Oberstedt, G. Giubega, I. Visan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 181 | Number 3 | November 2015 | Pages 289-301
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE14-108
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Point-by-Point (PbP) model as well as the related computer code is a useful tool to provide different prompt emission data [as a function of fragment mass A, fragment charge Z, total kinetic energy (TKE), and total average ones]. The present work focuses on the sensitivity of prompt neutron multiplicity to different properties of the fission fragments. In the construction of the fragmentation range of the PbP treatment, the use of different Z prescriptions affects the multiparametric matrices of different fragment and prompt emission quantities q(A,Z,TKE). The nonnegligible influence of how the most probable charge is considered (as unchanged charge distribution without or with the charge deviations ΔZ as a function of A or an average ΔZ value), as well as the number of Z taken at each A, is discussed. The calculated average prompt emission quantities as a function of A, as a function of TKE, and total average ones depend on the accuracy of experimental Y(A,TKE) distributions. The prompt neutron multiplicity of complementary fragments νpair (A) has a weak dependence on the total excitation energy (TXE) partition between complementary fully accelerated fragments. This assures a good prediction of the average prompt neutron multiplicity as a function of TKE and of the total average one even in the case of a rough or inappropriate TXE partition. The systematic behavior revealed by the experimental ratio νH/νpair as a function of AH together with the weak dependence of νpair(A) on the TXE partition can be exploited—in the absence of experimental ν(A) information—for an indirect verification of predicted ν(A).
