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Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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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.”
Masao Yamanaka, Cheol Ho Pyeon, Takahiro Yagi, Tsuyoshi Misawa
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 183 | Number 1 | May 2016 | Pages 96-106
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-51
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Experiments on the thorium-loaded accelerator-driven system (ADS) were carried out at the Kyoto University Critical Assembly to reevaluate the accuracy of reactor physics parameters, including prompt neutron decay constants reaction rate distributions, subcriticality, and subcritical multiplication factor, and to reveal the dependency of these parameters on the external neutron source by varying the external neutron source of 14-MeV neutrons and spallation neutrons generated by 100-MeV protons. In preparation for thorium-loaded ADS experiments, renewed irradiation experiments are conducted with small and thin foils of thorium in the critical state to reevaluate the accuracy of the experimental analyses. In the ADS experiments, reactor physics parameters are found to be different in the same core when the external neutron source is injected separately with 14-MeV neutrons and spallation neutrons. By comparing with the calculated results, the significant impact of external neutron sources on the neutron characteristics of ADS is obtained in both the static and the kinetic experimental analyses.