The Mahattan Project

The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the linked States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the snap of Major General Leslie Groves of the US phalanx Corps of Engineers. The Army component of the project was targetated the Manhattan District; Manhattan gradually superseded the official codename, maturation of Substitute Materials, for the entire project. Along the way, the Manhattan Project absorbed its antecedent British counterpart, Tube Alloys.

The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, simply grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (roughly equivalent to $24.4 billion as of 2011[1]). all over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing the fissionable materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites, some secret, across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Two types of atomic bomb were developed during the war. A relatively simple gun-type fission weapon was made using uranium-235, an isotope that makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium.



Since it is chemically homogeneous to the main isotope, uranium-238, and has almost the same mass, it proved difficult to separate. troika methods were employed for uranium enrichment: electromagnetic, gaseous and thermal. Most of this work was performed at Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

In parallel with the work on uranium was an effort to produce plutonium. Reactors were constructed at Hanford, Washington, in which uranium was irradiated and transmuted into plutonium. The plutonium was then chemically separated from the uranium. The gun-type design proved meshuggener to use with plutonium so a more interlocking implosion-type weapon was developed in a concerted design and construction effort at the projects weapons research and design lab in...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



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