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Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
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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.”
Bobby E. Leonard
Nuclear Technology | Volume 104 | Number 1 | October 1993 | Pages 89-105
Technical Paper | Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT93-A34872
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The use of induced time-dependent 222Rn behavior to determine source rate magnitudes, ventilation rates (air change rates), and other parameters that affect 222Rn and progeny levels and exposure to building occupants is investigated. When the subject space is purged and the buildup (seepage) back into the space is measured, theoretical, normalized equations show a unique, one-to-one correspondence of the 222Rn and particulate progeny temporal levels to the air change rate in the space. The Bateman equations have been solved in closed form for 222Rn and progeny in air and trapped on a filter under these conditions. A total of 28 measurements of the time-dependent behavior of radon progeny for two test facilities [one with a constant air change rate and one with a constant National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-calibrated source] and four residential dwellings were made. The results were compared with theory and with air change rate measurements made by anemometer flow rates and by the conventional method (SF6 decay). For a factor of 2 range in air change rates in the NIST constant source case, the agreement with the SF6 method air change rate was within ±10.6% standard deviation and agreement with the NIST source magnitude of 37.0 ± 1 kBq was within ±4.9% standard deviation. Agreement to within ±17.7% standard deviation was obtained on determination of air change rates for the residential dwellings. Based on the airborne concentrations and air change rates, source emanation rate magnitudes were obtained. Analyses of the results are presented in detail, and factors affecting the accuracy and feasibility of the method are identified.