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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.
K. Linga Murty, R. P. Shogan, W. H. Bamford
Nuclear Technology | Volume 64 | Number 3 | March 1984 | Pages 268-274
Technical Paper | Material | doi.org/10.13182/NT84-A33356
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effect of neutron radiation on the fracture characteristics of an A533 Grade B Class 1 pressure vessel steel was investigated using standard and instrumented precracked Charpy impact tests. Use of the instrumented impact test with precracked specimens has allowed fracture toughness values to be determined from the Charpy test. Neutron exposure resulted in minute decreases in the upper-shelf Charpy energy and fracture toughness, and an increase in the ductile brittle transition temperature (DBTT). The Charpy transition temperature shifted ∼29 K while the fracture toughness shift was ∼20 K. The temperature variation of the dynamic yield strength exhibited dips at DBTT for both unirradiated archive and irradiated materials.
