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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
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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The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
Neelima Mallidi, Miles Greiner, Venkata V. R. Venigalla
Nuclear Technology | Volume 159 | Number 2 | August 2007 | Pages 192-201
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3864
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The response of a truck package to a radiation fire model is simulated for a range of fire durations using three-dimensional finite element analysis. A model is developed to determine the cumulative seal degradation from its temperature-versus-time history. This model is used to determine the minimum fire duration that causes the seal to lose containment integrity. The fire durations that cause the cladding to reach its long-term creep deformation and burst rupture temperatures are determined and found to be longer than the durations that cause the seal to lose containment integrity. These simulations are repeated for package models without the compliant regions of the impact limiters, and for a package with the impact limiter completely removed. Those simulations quantify the level of thermal protection the impact limiters provide to the seals and cladding during simulated fires.
