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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.”
Kousaku Fukuda, Ekkehard Groos, John Rau
Nuclear Technology | Volume 69 | Number 3 | June 1985 | Pages 368-379
Technical Paper | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A33618
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Diffusion behavior of some metallic fission products in high-temperature reactor fuel elements, which had been irradiated in an in-pile gas loop (Saphir) installed in the Pégase reactor (France), was studied. Diffusion coefficients of cesium and silver in hightemperature isotropic pyrolytic carbon and graphite matrix under in-pile conditions were obtained by analyzing the concentration profiles of the fission products in the fuel elements, which had been measured by postirradiation examination. Although ruthenium profiles were measured, analysis of the diffusion coefficients could not be carried out because of the virtually flat distributions. By comparing the concentrations of the cesium isotopes in the fuel-free zone of the elements, it was found that 134Cs behaved anomalously in the graphite matrix, which was, probably, caused by activation of an undetectable amount of 133Cs impurity involved in the matrix. For the extremely high concentration of these fission products, which had been observed near the surface of the element, two causes, the uranium contamination concentrating there and the trapping effect in the defects introduced by fission of the locally concentrated uranium, were considered, although these high concentrations of the fission products were neglected in the analysis. Furthermore, transport behavior of the fission products through the gas gap from the fuel element to the graphite tube containing the elements was studied by measuring the concentration profiles in the tube. It was concluded that ruthenium transport occurred by direct fission recoil from the surface uranium contamination, whereas that of cesium, by desorption from the surface.