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The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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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.”
Yecheng Yu, Ping Tan, Yinjie Lin, Yuying Hu, Huidong Guo, Hao Lei, Zhongqi Zhang, Jiadong Li, Delin Hu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 207 | Number 2 | February 2021 | Pages 299-315
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1747839
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A proton therapy facility based on an isochronous superconducting cyclotron is under constructed at the Proton Therapy Facility of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Due to the limitation of minimum energy extracted by the energy selection system in the upstream beamline, a range shifter is installed at the end of the nozzle to further decrease the proton beam energy so that the shallow-seated tumors can be treated. In this paper, the physical structure, energy degradation scheme, and material optimization selection of the range shifter are discussed and analyzed by Monte Carlo simulation software Geant4 and FLUKA. At the same time, the treatment outcome on the energy degradation process and its influence on the synthesis of spread-out Bragg peak (SOBP) in the treatment plan system after the application of the range shifter are analyzed. The results show that by using a high-density polyethylene energy-degrading plate with a thickness of 42.35 mm, combined with two 30-mm copper collimators, the range shifter can achieve a good energy-degradation effect while significantly reducing the beam horizontal penumbra at the edge of the radiation field. At the same time, the addition of the range shifter can reduce the number of the energy level required to form the SOBP and shorten the treatment time, but it will inevitably lead to a slight increase in the longitudinal penumbra.