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Division members promote the advancement of mathematical and computational methods for solving problems arising in all disciplines encompassed by the Society. They place particular emphasis on numerical techniques for efficient computer applications to aid in the dissemination, integration, and proper use of computer codes, including preparation of computational benchmark and development of standards for computing practices, and to encourage the development on new computer codes and broaden their use.
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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.”
Jae-Woong Song, Jong-Kyung Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 103 | Number 2 | August 1993 | Pages 157-167
Technical Paper | Fission Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34840
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An efficient nodal method for the solution of two-group, multidimensional neutron kinetics problems is presented. In this method, correction factors called discontinuity factors are calculated in advance by the nodal expansion method (NEM) at steady-state conditions, and the nodewise flux and power distributions during steady-state and transient conditions are calculated based on the discontinuity factors. The nodal balance equation using the discontinuity factors is expressed logically in a less complicated manner than in other nodal methods since the factors reflect all of the approximations, including classic spatial truncations. Additionally, the convergence of the transient problem can be greatly accelerated through a thermal leakage-to-absorption ratio (TLAR) scheme. The test results for the two-group, two-dimensional benchmark problems demonstrate that this new method has acceptable accuracy and is about two times faster without the TLAR scheme and about ten times faster with the TLAR scheme than other nodal methods (NEM or analytic nodal method) for transient applications in which assemblysize coarse nodes are used.