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Centrifugation during the Manhattan Project

Manhattan Engineer District documents from 1942 to early 1944 reveal that consideration of centrifugation as a means of enriching uranium-235 during World War II was more extensive than is commonly appreciated. A full-scale prototype centrifuge was fabricated and tested at near-production speeds; enrichments at close to levels expected theoretically was demonstrated with pilot-plant units; and plans for production plants were developed. By January 1944 most of the engineering problems encountered with high-speed centrifuges had been overcome, but the project was dropped in the face of growing confidence in the eventual success of the competing electromagnetic-separation and gaseous-diffusion enrichment techniques, which already had received significant funding.

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Correspondence to B. Cameron Reed.

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B. Cameron Reed is Professor of Physics at Alma College in Alma,Michigan. His research interests include optical astronomy and the history of the Manhattan Project.

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Reed, B.C. Centrifugation during the Manhattan Project. Phys. Perspect. 11, 426 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-009-0429-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00016-009-0429-3

Keywords:

  • Jesse W. Beams
  • Lyman J. Briggs
  • Vannevar Bush
  • Arthur H. Compton
  • James B. Conant
  • Zola G. Deutsch
  • Enrico Fermi
  • Leslie R. Groves
  • Ernest O. Lawrence
  • Eger V. Murphree
  • Merle A. Tuve
  • Harold C. Urey
  • Manhattan Project
  • S-1 Committee
  • Kellex Corporation
  • Westinghouse Research Laboratories
  • uranium enrichment
  • centrifugation