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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.”
Josselin Morand, Reinhard Hentschel, Andrea Wittig, Raymond Moss, Sabet Hachem, Yuan-Hao Liu, Wolfgang Sauerwein
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 456-461
Shielding | 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-A9224
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Monte Carlo simulation of accelerated ions is a standard method in radiation protection. Such simulations have been used to calculate photon and neutron production in a beryllium target of the Essen d(14)+Be Fast Neutron Therapy Facility. In the deuteron case the predominant part of the neutrons is produced by breakup of the input particle, a decay that is not foreseen in standard versions of Monte Carlo codes. Thus, the calculation yields results that are different from measured ones. For simulations of the neutron beam at such facilities, an input description containing the spectral and geometric properties of the neutron and eventually photon beams produced in the target is needed. For the Essen neutron beam, such a description has been obtained by comparison of MCNPX simulations with published data and measurements at a static beam geometry having no background radiation. The validation of the neutron beam input description was obtained by comparing measured and calculated dose distributions in a water phantom using a standard collimator at the treatment gantry.