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Division Spotlight
Young Members Group
The Young Members Group works to encourage and enable all young professional members to be actively involved in the efforts and endeavors of the Society at all levels (Professional Divisions, ANS Governance, Local Sections, etc.) as they transition from the role of a student to the role of a professional. It sponsors non-technical workshops and meetings that provide professional development and networking opportunities for young professionals, collaborates with other Divisions and Groups in developing technical and non-technical content for topical and national meetings, encourages its members to participate in the activities of the Groups and Divisions that are closely related to their professional interests as well as in their local sections, introduces young members to the rules and governance structure of the Society, and nominates young professionals for awards and leadership opportunities available to members.
Meeting Spotlight
ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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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.”
C. Tompkins, M. Corradini, M. Anderson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 2 | November 2016 | Pages 346-354
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-26
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A research team at the University of Wisconsin has constructed a 1/4-scale experimental facility to study natural circulation cooling in an air-cooled reactor cavity cooling system (ARCCS) for decay heat removal. The ARCCS uses the principle of fluid buoyancy to induce a flow of air through multiple heated risers. This flow is used to remove decay heat from the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) by radiative and convective heat transfer to the risers that surround the RPV. During normal operation of a high-temperature reactor, this system is designed to protect the reactor cavity structures from excessive heat loads. The ARCCS experimental facility is equipped with new distributed temperature sensors designed by Luna Inc. The sensors are distributed optical fiber sensors that can measure a change in temperature from their initial state every 1.25 mm along a 10-m fiber at a maximum rate of 24 Hz. These fibers are standard communication-grade fibers, which are flexible and can be orientated in whatever shape needed to collect data, based on what the facility dictates. The standard available coatings can allow for continuous operation at temperatures of up to 300°C before degradation; however, the silica fiber itself can be taken as high as 700°C. The data from the fibers can be used to analyze the temperature distribution of the air in the ARCCS as it mixes and vents out of the system. The data produced from these fibers may prove to be useful for validation of the modeling of natural-circulation phenomena and the mixing of buoyancy-dominated flows with greater resolution.