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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.”
V. Abella, R. Miró, B. Juste, G. Verdú
Nuclear Technology | Volume 175 | Number 1 | July 2011 | Pages 53-57
Technical Paper | Special Issue on the 16th Biennial Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division / Radiation Transport and Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A12269
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work is focused on coupling PLanUNC (PLUNC), a set of software tools for radiotherapy treatment planning (RTP), with MCNP5 Monte Carlo N-Particle transport code, utilizing the RANDO phantom as the patient model and the Elekta Precise linac as the irradiation source for comparison. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to compare the results obtained from the default calculations of the treatment plan software with those obtained via the implementation of MCNP5 calculations. Monte Carlo techniques have been proved to be a more accurate dose calculation aid than conventional treatment planning systems, having the only limitation of computer time. The implementation of MCNP5 calculations in a commercial RTP software aims to provide more accurate dose mapping of the patient in reasonable computer times. The results obtained in this paper represent a significant contribution in the development of RTP patient dose simulations.