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Operations & Power
Members focus on the dissemination of knowledge and information in the area of power reactors with particular application to the production of electric power and process heat. The division sponsors meetings on the coverage of applied nuclear science and engineering as related to power plants, non-power reactors, and other nuclear facilities. It encourages and assists with the dissemination of knowledge pertinent to the safe and efficient operation of nuclear facilities through professional staff development, information exchange, and supporting the generation of viable solutions to current issues.
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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.”
A. Uchibori, H. Ohshima
Nuclear Technology | Volume 167 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 83-94
Technical Paper | NURETH-12 / Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A8853
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A numerical analysis method for melting/solidification phenomena has been developed to evaluate feasibility of the several candidate techniques in the nuclear fuel cycle. Our method is based on the extended finite element method, which has been used for moving boundary problems. The basic idea of the extended finite element method is to incorporate the signed distance function into the standard finite element interpolation to represent a discontinuous gradient of the temperature at a moving solid-liquid interface. This technique makes it possible to simulate movement of the solid-liquid interface without the use of a moving mesh. Construction of the finite element equation from the energy equation in the case of melting/solidification problems has been discussed and is reported here. The technique of quadrature and the method to solve the governing equations for the problem involving liquid flows have also been constructed in the present work. The numerical solutions of the basic problems - a one-dimensional Stefan problem, solidification in a two-dimensional square corner, and melting of pure gallium - were compared to the exact solutions or to the experimental data. Through these verifications, validity of the newly developed numerical analysis method has been demonstrated.