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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.
Taisuke Yonomoto, Masaya Kondo, Yutaka Kukita, L. Scott Ghan,, Richard R. Schultz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 119 | Number 2 | August 1997 | Pages 112-122
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35380
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Integral experiments simulating small-break loss-of-coolant accidents in the Westinghouse AP600 reactor are conducted using the ROSA-V large-scale test facility. These experiments show that the core makeup tank (CMT) behavior can be divided into two phases: the natural-circulation and the drain phases. The natural-circulation phase between the CMT and the rest of the primary is established immediately after the opening of the valve in the discharge line. The hot water from the primary, through the pressure balance line (PBL), accumulates in the top of the CMT, forming a clear thermal stratification above the cold initial inventory of the CMT. The drain phase is initiated by flashing in the CMT for break diameters ≤1 in. and by a gaseous flow from the primary for break diameters ≥2 in. Interactions between the CMT and the other safety components are observed: The CMT discharge rate is decreased by accumulator injection and is increased by actuation of the automatic depressurization system. When the PBL is empty of liquid, the CMT drain rate is approximately given by the free gravitational drain rate, irrespective of the flow direction in the PBL.
