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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.
R. A. Lorenz, J. L. Collins, A. P. Malinauskas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 46 | Number 3 | December 1979 | Pages 404-410
Technical Paper | Nuclear Power Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A32346
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Models for cesium and iodine release from light water reactor (LWR) fuel rods defected in steam were formulated based on experimental fission product release data from several types of defected LWR fuel rods. The models were applied to a pressurized water reactor undergoing a loss-of-coolant accident temperature transient. Calculated total iodine and cesium releases were 0.053 and 0.025% of the total reactor inventories of these elements, respectively, with most of the release occurring at the time of rupture. These values are approximately two orders of magnitude less than those used in WASH-1400, the Reactor Safety Study.