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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
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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.”
Nisy E. Ipe
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 559-563
Shielding Materials | 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-A9243
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A typical particle therapy facility consists of an injector, a cyclotron or a synchrotron, a high-energy transport beam line, several treatment rooms including fixed-beam and gantry rooms, and even a research area. During the operation of these facilities, radiation is produced with neutrons being the dominant component outside the shielding. These facilities have large amounts of shielding with concrete thicknesses ranging up to [approximately]5 m or more. Space required for shielding can be minimized by using composite shielding or high-density material such as Ledite® (manufactured by Atomic International, Frederick, Pennsylvania). Transmission data for radiation from protons and carbon ions incident on tissue targets with energies in the therapeutic energy range of interest were derived using the Monte Carlo code FLUKA for three different compositions of Ledite. Use of Ledite® or composite shielding results in space savings when compared to concrete.