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Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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.”
P. Silvennoinen, T. Vieno, J. Vira
Nuclear Technology | Volume 48 | Number 1 | April 1980 | Pages 34-42
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32445
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A technique has been devised to combine multiple criteria in fuel cycle optimization. Besides the conventional economic optimum, the model comprises the objectives of minimizing the economic risk as well as the proliferation hazard in the light water reactor (LWR) fuel cycle. Based on a material flow model, objective functions are formulated in a form amenable to linear programming. The scheme commences with a single-criterion stage, where the three solutions and suboptimal strategies obtained span the domain of feasible multigoal solutions. The multigoal optimum is searched by means of fuzzy optimization techniques that are eventually reduced again to linear programming. The method is applied to a reference nuclear power program. In this case, the economic optimum is found to motivate plutonium recycle in the LWR. The sole minimization of the proliferation risk corresponds to recycling the uranium only. Reprocessing and plutonium utilization should take place in a more resistant system. Minimization of economic risks would in this case lead to the once-through cycle. The combination of all the three criteria in the multigoal optimum is achieved by a recycle strategy where the recycle loadings are batched and scheduled to take place in a discontinuous manner. A substantial reduction of the proliferation risk can be claimed at an economic penalty that would be on the order of 10 to 15% of the fuel cycle costs.