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The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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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.”
K. G. Veinot, J. S. Bogard
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 364-368
Neutron Measurements | Special Issue on the 11th International Conference on Radiation Shielding and the 15th Topical Meeting of the Radiation Protection and Shielding Division (Part 2) / Radiation Protection | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9210
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new 252Cf source has been procured for use at the Dosimetry Applications and Research facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). This source was encapsulated by the Californium Facility at ORNL; however, the encapsulation differs from previous designs designated as SR-Cf-100. The new encapsulation, designated SR-Cf-3000, has a similar cylindrical radius to the previous generation but is 1.6 cm longer. Since the encapsulation geometries differ, the amount of internal scattering of neutrons will also differ, leading to changes in anisotropy factors between the two designs. Additionally, the different encapsulations will affect the absorbed dose and dose equivalent delivered per neutron emitted by the source since both the quantity and energy distribution of the emitted neutrons will vary with irradiation angle. This work presents the fluence anisotropy factors for the SR-Cf-3000 series encapsulation as well as absorbed dose and dose equivalent values calculated for various angles of irradiation. The fluence anisotropy factors were found to range from a maximum of 1.037 to a minimum of 0.641 for irradiation angles perpendicular and parallel to the source axis, respectively. Anisotropy in absorbed dose varied from a maximum of 1.033 to a minimum of 0.676 while anisotropy of dose equivalent varied from 1.035 to 0.657. Anisotropy in the region most commonly used was found to be +3.2% for absorbed dose and +3.3% for dose equivalent, and these effects should be included when performing dosimeter irradiations.
