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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.”
Bin Han, Bryan Bednarz, Yaron Danon, Robert Block, X. George Xu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 2 | November 2009 | Pages 576-579
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 Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9246
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High-energy photons from medical accelerators are used to treat tumors in cancer patients. One consequence is the production of neutrons from photonuclear interactions in the high-Z accelerator components. The release and capture of neutrons produce radioactive nuclei that can irradiate patients and medical personnel. The goal of this study is to develop a method for quantifying the activation of accelerator components using MCNPX. To benchmark this method, we took activation measurements from the irradiation of a series of zinc plates using a 55-MeV electron beam and compared them with MCNPX calculations. The measured cumulative photon-induced activity from 68Zn(,p)67Cu interactions in all of the plates was 10.8 MBq, which is in 5.4% agreement with the calculated value of 10.2 ± 1.1 MBq. Based on these results, a series of simulations were performed in order to optimize the photon- and neutron-induced activity in tungsten for subsequent experiments. The radioactivity from activated short-lived isotopes and subsequent buildup can be significant from repeated accelerator operations during a day. The approach described in this paper is useful in quantifying the origin and the amount of nuclear activation and the buildup of radioactivity.
