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The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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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.”
Charles W. Solbrig, Kenneth J. Bateman
Nuclear Technology | Volume 172 | Number 2 | November 2010 | Pages 189-203
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10904
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The goal of this work is to produce a ceramic waste form that permanently occludes radioactive waste. This is accomplished by absorbing radioactive salts into zeolite, mixing with glass frit, heating to a molten state at 915°C to form a sodalite glass matrix, and solidifying for long-term storage. Less long-term leaching is expected if the solidifying cooling rate does not cause cracking. In addition to thermal stress, this paper proposes a mathematical model for the stress formed during solidification, which is very large for fast cooling rates during solidification and can cause severe cracking. A solidifying glass or ceramic cylinder forms a dome on the cylinder top end. The temperature distribution during solidification causes the solidification stress and the dome resulting in an axial length deficit. The axial stress, determined by the length deficit, remains when the solid is at room temperature with the outer region in compression and the inner region in tension. Large tensions will cause cracking of the specimen. The temperature deficit, derived by dividing the length deficit by the coefficient of thermal expansion, allows solidification stress theory to be extended to the circumferential stress. This paper derives the solidification stress model, gives examples, explains how to induce beneficial stresses, and compares theory to experimental data.