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Accelerator Applications
The division was organized to promote the advancement of knowledge of the use of particle accelerator technologies for nuclear and other applications. It focuses on production of neutrons and other particles, utilization of these particles for scientific or industrial purposes, such as the production or destruction of radionuclides significant to energy, medicine, defense or other endeavors, as well as imaging and diagnostics.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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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.”
Bernard Bonin, Dominique Grenéche, Frank Carré, Frédéric Damian, Jean-Yves Doriath
Nuclear Technology | Volume 145 | Number 3 | March 2004 | Pages 266-274
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle and Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT04-A3476
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTRs) are able to accommodate a wide variety of mixtures of fissile and fertile materials without any significant modification of the core design. This flexibility is due to an uncoupling between the parameters of cooling geometry and the parameters that characterize neutronic optimization (moderation ratio or heavy nuclide concentration and distribution).Among other advantageous features, an HTR core has a better neutron economy than a light water reactor (LWR) because there is much less parasitic capture in the moderator (capture cross section of graphite is 100 times less than the one of water), in internal structures, and in fission products (because of a harder spectrum).Moreover, thanks to the high strength of the coated particles, HTR fuels are able to reach very high burnups, far beyond the possibilities offered by other fuels (except the special case of molten salt reactors).These features make HTRs potentially interesting for closing the nuclear fuel cycle and stabilizing the plutonium inventory.A large number of fuel cycle studies are already available today on three main categories of fuel cycles involving HTRs: (a) high-enriched uranium cycle, based on thorium utilization as a fertile material and high-enriched uranium as a fissile material; (b) low-enriched uranium cycle (LEU), where only LEU is used (from 5 to 15%); (c) plutonium cycle based on the utilization of plutonium only as a fissile material, with (or without) fertile materials.Plutonium consumption at high burnups in HTRs has already been tested with encouraging results under the DRAGON project and at Peach Bottom. To maximize plutonium consumption, recent core studies have also been performed on plutonium HTR cores, with special emphasis on weapon-grade plutonium consumption. We complete the picture by a core study for an HTR burning reactor-grade plutonium. Limits in burnup due to core neutronics are investigated for this type of core.With these limits in mind, we study in some detail the Pu cycle in the special case of a reactor fleet made of a mixture of LWRs and HTRs. It is reasonable to assume that if HTRs are to be deployed on an industrial scale, they will coexist during a long period of time with already existing LWRs. The present paper investigates the symbiotic behavior of LWRs producing plutonium and of HTRs burning it.
