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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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
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