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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.”
José March-Leuba
Nuclear Technology | Volume 75 | Number 1 | October 1986 | Pages 15-22
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT86-A15973
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The development of a reduced-order linear model of the linear dynamic behavior of boiling water reactors (BWRs) is reported. The model is based on a detailed study of the various physical dynamic processes involved. The major results of the work are (a) the pole-zero configuration of the transfer function of this type of reactor has been determined, (b) a minimum of three zeros and four poles is needed to properly represent this transfer function, (c) these poles and zeros have been associated with reactor physical processes such as fuel heat transfer dynamics, and (d) a reduced-order linear model composed of only five equations has been developed. With the appropriate parameters, the model very accurately represents the dynamic behavior of BWRs predicted by fine-mesh computer calculations.
