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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.”
Neng-Chuan Tien, Shih-Hai Li
Nuclear Technology | Volume 155 | Number 2 | August 2006 | Pages 208-225
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3757
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A numerical model was developed to analyze radioniclide transport within saturated fractured rock that accounts for the effect of nonlinear kinetic sorption of radionuclides on groundwater colloids. The interactions between radionuclides and colloids are assumed to be nonlinear and kinetic, while sorption of radionuclides on fracture surfaces and in rock matrix is described by a sorption distribution coefficient. Colloids may move with a velocity that is higher than the mean groundwater velocity. However, as there are insufficient data with which to assign a priori colloid velocity, we use a theoretical model based on hydrodynamic chromatography to evaluate the colloid velocity within a single fracture.Calculation results show that external surface forces acting on colloids could alter both the mobility of colloids and the host population of radionuclides in groundwater. The results also indicate that colloid-facilitated transport occurs depending on colloid concentration. Moreover, a simple two-member radionuclide decay chain is assumed and incorporated into the kinetic model.