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Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
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ANS Student Conference 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.”
Klemens Schwarzer, Josef Thelen, Werner Katscher
Nuclear Technology | Volume 60 | Number 1 | January 1983 | Pages 97-103
Technical Paper | Radioactive Waste Management | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33105
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
For the case of postulated leakage from a tank containing a high activity nuclear waste solution, as planned for the German reprocessing plant at Gorleben, the migration of radionuclides in the groundwater current has been examined. As the nuclide migration velocity is strongly influenced by sorption processes, which for a given soil are concentration dependent, adsorption and desorption coefficients for strontium, cesium, ruthenium, and cerium were measured over a wide concentration range in sandy subsoil taken from the Gorleben site. Using the results from the adsorption experiments and neglecting the fact that the sorption coefficients in the case of desorption turn out to be significantly higher, migration velocities and concentration profiles for strontium, cesium, ruthenium, and cerium were calculated with the MOFIS code. The results show significant delay and concentration decrease of the radionuclides with strontium being the “critical” element.