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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
Sedat Goluoglu, Lester M. Petrie, Jr., Michael E. Dunn, Daniel F. Hollenbach, Bradley T. Rearden
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 2 | May 2011 | Pages 214-235
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the SCALE Nuclear Analysis Code System / Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-124
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper describes the Monte Carlo codes KENO V.a and KENO-VI in SCALE that are primarily used to calculate multiplication factors and flux distributions of fissile systems. Both codes allow explicit geometric representation of the target systems and are used internationally for safety analyses involving fissile materials. KENO V.a has limiting geometric rules such as no intersections and no rotations. These limitations make KENO V.a execute very efficiently and run very fast. On the other hand, KENO-VI allows very complex geometric modeling. Both KENO codes can utilize either continuous-energy or multigroup cross-section data and have been thoroughly verified and validated with ENDF libraries through ENDF/B-VII.0, which has been first distributed with SCALE 6. Development of the Monte Carlo solution technique and solution methodology as applied in both KENO codes is explained in this paper. Available options and proper application of the options and techniques are also discussed. Finally, performance of the codes is demonstrated using published benchmark problems.