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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.”
Robert W. Terhune
Nuclear Technology | Volume 15 | Number 3 | September 1972 | Pages 431-446
Technical Paper | Nuclear Explosive | doi.org/10.13182/NT72-A16040
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Project Wagon Wheel is a joint study by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL) and El Paso Natural Gas Company (EPNG) to investigate the technical concept of nuclear stimulation of a natural gas reservoir located near Pinedale, Wyoming. Laboratory stress-strain deformation measurements on core samples taken from EPNG Wagon Wheel hole No. 1 (at a depth between 8000 and 12 000 ft) show that the shear failure envelope for Wagon Wheel sandstone is almost identical to that for Hoggar granite. A calculation for Wagon Wheel sandstone for 1-kt energy at a depth of 300 m duplicated cavity radius, shear fracture radius, stressed region, peak particle velocity, and peak acceleration data measured from the nuclear experiments conducted in the Hoggar granite by the French. The conclusion drawn from this comparison is that the Hoggar granite chimneys and regions of increased permeability provide a reasonable model to assume for Wagon Wheel. A single explosive detonated at a depth of 10 000 ft is predicted to produce a cavity radius of 5.77 W1/3 (m,kt1/3), with shear fractures ex tending out to 2.5 cavity radii followed by a stressed region to 5 cavity radii. The expected chimney will have a radius of 1.2 cavity radii and a height of 2.5 cavity radii above the shot point, resulting in an apical void at the top representing about 50% of the cavity volume. Large increase in permeability is expected only within the region of shear fracture. Chimney height for multiple detonations is expected to be 4 cavity radii based on a rubble porosity of 21%. Explosive spacing for multiple simultaneous detonations varies from a minimum of 5 cavity radii (tangent chimneys) to 7.0 cavity radii based on maximum fracture increase due to shock interaction. Explosive spacing for sequential detonation varied between 7.5 and 12.5 cavity radius based on the similarity between cratering phenomenology (reflecting a shock from the ground surface) and reflecting a shock off the apical void of a previously formed chimney. It is expected that a permeable annular ring will form around the axis between the two explosives to connect the lower chimney with the cavity above.
