RESEARCH IN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRIAL LABORATORIES

CSAC 72.2.80/B

RESEARCH IN GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRIAL LABORATORIES

1939-66

CSAC 72.2.80/B.1 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.83

The material is divided as follows:

B.1 Ministry of Supply

B.2 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.69 Associated Electrical Industries Ltd. Research Laboratory, Aldermaston

B.70 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.83 Vickers Company Research Laboratory, Ascot

The majority of this Section relates to Chick's work at A.E.I. Aldermaston where he was Section Leader, Nuclear Physics Section, 1946-58, and Group Leader, Nuclear Sciences Group, 1958-63. Chick has outlined his major areas of work at Aldermaston as follows (see CSAC 72.2.80/A.26):

'1) Particle accelerations and low energy nuclear physics: based on design and construction of two Van de Graaf (sic) accelerators for use up to 4 MeV, and a unique RF travelling wave accelerator for protons and deuterons.

2) Thermonuclear and plasma research: with Sir George Paget Thomson and in collaboration with UKAEA. Design and development of metal walled discharge tubes (1959 'Sceptre' series of devices).

3) Neutron physics research using a medium power research reactor: MERLIN 5MW (commissioned 1959), designed and built as a research tool for industry, government bodies and the universities. I sold to Germany, I to AWRE.'

Material relating to particle accelerators and thermonuclear research is to be found at CSAC 72.2.80/B.2 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.9 and CSAC 72.2.80/B.10 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.40 respectively. There are also several folders of work on superconductivity (B.41 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.51) and some more miscellaneous material (B.52 - CSAC 72.2.80/B.69), but nothing remains of Chick's work on the Merlin Research Reactor apart from his published papers and a few press-cuttings describing the opening of the Reactor in November 1959 (see CSAC 72.2.80/B.39).

The surviving papers from the Vickers Research Laboratory are a rather heterogeneous collection and cannot be considered fully representative of Chick's activities during that period.

<p>Lectures and papers relating to research in progress at A.E.I. Aldermaston, including work on Sceptre and the Merlin research reactor, will be found in Section C, especially CSAC 72.2.80/C.11 - CSAC 72.2.80/C.36.</p>

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