Ames Project was a research and development project that was part of the larger Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bombs during World War II.
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19 Facts About Ames Project
1.
2.
The Ames Project developed the Ames Process, a method for preparing pure uranium metal that the Manhattan Project needed for its atomic bombs and nuclear reactors.
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3.
The success of the Ames Project ensured that it became a separate laboratory within the Manhattan Project.
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4.
Ames Project remained an associate director at the Metallurgical Laboratory.
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5.
The Manhattan Ames Project's estimated requirements for 1942 were 200 short tons, of which Compton required just 45 short tons for his proposed nuclear reactor.
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6.
The following month the Ames Project team found that molten uranium could be cast in a graphite container.
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7.
Ames Project took the cube back to Ames, and asked Wilhelm to investigate.
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8.
Ames Project investigated a process originally developed by J C Goggins and others at the University of New Hampshire in 1926.
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9.
Ames Project supplied two tons of uranium metal to the Metallurgical Laboratory for the construction of Chicago Pile-1, the world's first nuclear reactor, which achieved criticality on 2 December 1942.
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10.
Ames Project began a program of recovering uranium metal from scrap.
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11.
In July and August 1943, the Ames Project attempted to create thorium metal using something similar to the Ames Process.
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12.
The Ames Project began working on a production process in December 1943, reducing beryllium fluoride in a bomb with metallic magnesium and a sulphur booster.
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13.
The Ames Project Laboratory produced 437 pounds of extremely pure cerium by August 1945, when production ended.
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14.
The Ames Project produced and tested uranium carbide, which had a potential to be used as a fuel in reactors instead of metallic uranium.
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15.
The Ames Project therefore studied uranium-copper alloys, which would occur where the uranium met the copper jacket.
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16.
Attempts were made to separate plutonium from uranium through metallurgy, exploiting plutonium's greater affinity with gold and silver, but the Manhattan Ames Project chose to use the bismuth phosphate process, a chemical separation method, instead.
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17.
Ames Project studied thorium, alloying it with bismuth, carbon, chromium, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, oxygen, tin, tungsten and uranium, and alloyed beryllium with bismuth, lead, thorium, uranium and zinc.
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18.
Samples began arriving from the reactors in 1943, and although the locus of the Manhattan Project's investigations into plutonium chemistry was at the Metallurgical Laboratory, the Ames Project investigated methods of separating plutonium metal from uranium and fission products.
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19.
The Ames Project Laboratory retained a focus on chemistry and metallurgy, particularly of the rare-earth metals.
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