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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.”
R. Bedogni, A. Esposito
Nuclear Technology | Volume 168 | Number 3 | December 2009 | Pages 615-619
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 3) / Radiation Measurements and Instrumentation | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A9278
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the framework of the radiation protection monitoring around DANE, the high-energy factory of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare-Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (INFN-LNF), a characterization of the neutron field was performed. As a suitable neutron spectrometer, a specially designed Bonner sphere system, whose energy range was extended up to hundreds mega-electron-volts by means of three spheres equipped with copper or lead inserts, was employed. The response matrix of the system was derived with MCNPX and experimentally validated with reference neutron fields. The neutron spectrum has been unfolded with the FRUIT (FRascati Unfolding Interactive Tool) code, a new unfolding code developed at INFN-LNF for the needs of operational radiation protection. This paper presents the results of the measurements in the DANE complex, underlying the achievements of the new unfolding code. Moreover, the impact of these kinds of measurements on routine radiation protection practices is briefly addressed.
