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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.”
P. Chellapandi, S. C. Chetal, Baldev Raj
Nuclear Technology | Volume 172 | Number 1 | October 2010 | Pages 1-15
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10878
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The FUSTIN dedicated computer code has been developed to predict the transient response of pool-type fast reactor components in a core disruptive accident. FUSTIN accurately simulates several complex phenomena, such as large distortions in the fluids, large displacements of the structure, fast transient fluid-structure interaction, etc., involved in determining the transient pressures, vessel displacements, and strains. FUSTIN has been validated by solving a few international benchmark problems. Further, for experimental validation of FUSTIN, dedicated tests were conducted to (a) characterize a low-density explosive that can appropriately simulate the nuclear energy release rate and (b) generate data, particularly deformations in the vessels representing the scaled-down model of the main vessel of a typical pool-type fast reactor. In the tests, the nuclear energy release rate was simulated by a low-density chemical explosive, which has been thoroughly characterized. The validation exercise demonstrates the excellent prediction capability of FUSTIN. The paper presents the mathematical formulations, solution strategy, and validation aspects of FUSTIN.
