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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Empowering the next generation: ANS’s newest book focuses on careers in nuclear energy
A new career guide for the nuclear energy industry is now available: The Nuclear Empowered Workforce by Earnestine Johnson. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience across 16 nuclear facilities, Johnson offers a practical, insightful look into some of the many career paths available in commercial nuclear power. To mark the release, Johnson sat down with Nuclear News for a wide-ranging conversation about her career, her motivation for writing the book, and her advice for the next generation of nuclear professionals.
When Johnson began her career at engineering services company Stone & Webster, she entered a field still reeling from the effects of the Three Mile Island incident in 1979, nearly 15 years earlier. Her hiring cohort was the first group of new engineering graduates the company had brought on since TMI, a reflection of the industry-wide pause in nuclear construction. Her first long-term assignment—at the Millstone site in Waterford, Conn., helping resolve design issues stemming from TMI—marked the beginning of a long and varied career that spanned positions across the country.
Kyoung O. Lee, Robin P. Gardner
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 174 | Number 3 | July 2013 | Pages 264-285
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-23
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Pebble motions in pebble-bed reactors (PBRs) have been investigated by generating pebble motion histories with Monte Carlo molecular dynamics simulations. This extension of molecular dynamics to PBR-sized pebble motion is accomplished by splitting the simulation into two parts. The first part simulates the dropping of pebbles into the PBR with a closed exit that allows one to obtain the correct initial placement of all pebbles within the pebble bed. The second part simulates what happens when the PBR exit is opened and normal pebble flow begins. Using this combined approach the pebble piling up and subsequent discharge are predicted. Simulations have been conducted with this approach by monitoring the mass flow rate, the pebble piling up, and the subsequent discharge for a range of pertinent parameters using the Hertz-Mindlin force for pebble interactions. The simulation output data include the force, velocity, and position of the pebbles as a function of time. Note that arching or locked flow, a very important phenomenon, is predicted by this approach under certain operating conditions. Using this approach, PBR results (including arching) for a range of the parameters of interest are reported and are discussed herein.