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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.”
K. Schmid, M. J. Baldwin, R. P. Doerner, D. Nishijima
Nuclear Technology | Volume 159 | Number 3 | September 2007 | Pages 238-244
Technical Paper | Beryllium Technology | doi.org/10.13182/NT07-A3871
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The deposition of beryllium (Be) on carbon (C) and tungsten (W) has been studied at the PISCES-B divertor simulator. Samples of C and W were exposed to a deuterium plasma that was seeded with Be from a small effusion cell mounted ~120 mm upstream from the sample. The incident and eroded flux of Be from these samples was monitored through visible light spectroscopy. The surface composition and layer thickness were measured using Auger electron spectroscopy and ion beam analysis. Results on the formation of Be layers on C and W focusing on the layer growth rate and thickness as functions of temperature are presented. Modeling calculations of Be layer formation on graphite can explain the equilibrium surface composition, but a prediction of the layer formation rate is hampered by an incomplete model of the influence of surface morphology on chemical erosion of the surface. For Be layer formation on W, the modeling calculations including Be diffusion and sublimation correctly predict the Be uptake into the W surface.
