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Dr Smith goes to Los Alamos

Cyril Stanley Smith, plutonium metallurgy, and the Manhattan project

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Abstract

Long before the complex pressure-temperature phase diagram of plutonium (shown below) was determined, Cyril Stanley Smith’s suggestion that adding small amounts of some impurity atoms to liquid plutonium might retard its undesirable transformation to the brittle alpha phase enabled the fabrication of the world’s first nuclear device tested successfully in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.

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Suggested Reading

  1. Cyril Stanley Smith, Some Recollections of Metallurgy at Los Alamos, 1943–45,Journal of Nuclear Materials, Vol. 100, No. 1, pp. 3–10, 1981.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, MST-8, Mail Stop G755, 87545, NM, USA

    S. G. Srinivasan (Technical Staff Member)

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  1. S. G. Srinivasan
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  2. S. S. Hecker
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  3. P. S. Follansbee
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  4. M. I. Baskes
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Correspondence to S. G. Srinivasan.

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Srinivasan, S.G., Hecker, S.S., Follansbee, P.S. et al. Dr Smith goes to Los Alamos. Reson 11, 8–25 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02838878

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02838878

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