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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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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.
Jung-Woo Kim, Dong-Keun Cho, Nak-Youl Ko, Jongtae Jeong, Min-Hoon Baik
Nuclear Technology | Volume 203 | Number 1 | July 2018 | Pages 1-16
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1426331
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
New methodology for a risk-based safety assessment of a geological disposal system of nuclear waste was implemented using the numerical Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) Performance Assessment Model (K-PAM). K-PAM was applied to a conceptual geological disposal system for pyroprocessed radioactive wastes based on the KAERI Underground Research Tunnel (KURT) site. The methodology was systematically organized for model development considering two types of external events: earthquakes and well intrusion. Following description of its conceptual models and submodules, K-PAM was partially verified by comparing the consequences of two major modules of K-PAM—engineered barrier system and natural barrier system—with those by a well-known, comparable process model using COMSOL. In addition, K-PAM was demonstrated using three scenarios: (1) the reference scenario, in which the normal consequences of the disposal system without external events could be predicted; (2) the deterministic complex scenario, in which the impacts of individual external events on the disposal system could be estimated separately; and (3) the probabilistic complex scenario, in which the efficiency of the new methodology for a risk-based safety assessment could be confirmed numerically by showing the probable maximum dose rate according to any single scenario, the convergence of risk, the dominant impacts contributing to the maximum dose rate, and the probability of occurrence of the scenario groups.