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Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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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.”
Won Sik Yang, Hussein S. Khalil
Nuclear Technology | Volume 135 | Number 2 | August 2001 | Pages 162-182
Technical Paper | Accelerators | doi.org/10.13182/NT135-162
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The results of blanket design studies for a lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE)-cooled accelerator transmutation of waste system are presented. These studies focused primarily on achieving two important and somewhat contradictory performance objectives: First, maximizing discharge burnup, so as to minimize the number of successive recycle stages and associated recycle losses, and second, minimizing burnup reactivity loss over an operating cycle, to minimize reduction of source multiplication with burnup. The blanket is assumed to be fueled with a nonuranium metallic dispersion fuel; pyrochemical techniques are used for recycle of residual transuranic (TRU) actinides in this fuel after irradiation. The key system objective of high-discharge burnup is shown to be achievable in a configuration with comparatively high power density and relatively low burnup reactivity loss. System design and operating characteristics that satisfy these goals while meeting key thermal-hydraulic and materials-related design constraints have been preliminarily developed. Results of the performance evaluations indicate that an average discharge burnup of ~27% is achieved with a ~3.5-yr fuel residence time. Reactivity loss over the half-year cycle is 5.3%k. The peak fast fluence value at discharge, the TRU fraction in the charged fuel, and the peak coolant velocity are well within the assumed design limits. Owing to its use of nonuranium fuel, this proposed LBE-cooled system can consume light water reactor-discharge TRUs at the maximum rate achievable per unit of fission energy produced (~1.0 g/MWd).