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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.”
Sigitas Rimkevicius, Eugenijus Uspuras
Nuclear Technology | Volume 164 | Number 1 | October 2008 | Pages 97-102
Technical Paper | Icapp '06 | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A4011
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the experimental investigation of the thermal-hydraulic characteristics for two types of test sections: thin annular pebble beds (i.e., spheres dumped in thin annular slots) and pebble beds placed between cylinders. The experimental results of heat transfer from the spheres and from a cylinder, as well as hydraulic drag for both types of test sections, are presented in this paper. The results of the thin annular pebble bed experiments demonstrate that the maximum heat transfer and hydraulic drag is at the annular slot with the relative width K equal to 1.07 and 1.75 of the sphere diameter. The heat transfer in the internal layers at these values of K is equal to the heat transfer in the internal layers of large (unlimited) rhombic packing. The results of the experimental investigation of pebble beds between cylinders demonstrate that the randomly arranged pebble bed is preferable to the regular rhombic structure from the viewpoints of design simplicity, heat transfer from the cylinder, and drag coefficient.
