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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.”
Mario Dalle Donne, Walter Hame
Nuclear Technology | Volume 71 | Number 1 | October 1985 | Pages 111-124
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT85-A33713
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Many critical heat flux (CHF) correlations have been developed for water-cooled rod clusters representing typical pressurized water reactor (PWR) or boiling water reactor fuel element geometries with relatively wide rod lattices. The fuel elements of an advanced pressurized water reactor (APWR), however, have a tight fuel rod lattice in order to increase fuel utilization. It was therefore decided to produce a new CHF correlation valid for rod bundles with tight lattices. The already available WSC-2 correlation was chosen as a basis. The geometry-dependent parameters of this correlation were again determined by root-mean-square fitting from the experimental data of CHF test performed within the framework of the light water breeder reactor program at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory. These tests include triangular arrays of rod bundles with very tight lattices. The effects of spiral spacer ribs were based on experimental data from Columbia University. The present correlation was compared with various tests performed with rod bundles with wire wrapped spacers. Application of the new CHF correlation to conditions typical for an APWR shows that the predicted CHFs are smaller than those calculated with the usual PWR CHF correlations.
