ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Latest Magazine Issues
Mar 2026
Jan 2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
April 2026
Nuclear Technology
February 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Takehiko Yokomine
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 60 | Number 2 | August 2011 | Pages 840-844
Computational Tools, Modeling & Validation | Proceedings of the Nineteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE) (Part 2) | doi.org/10.13182/FST11-A12491
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The thermal properties of the pebble beds have a significant impact on the temperature profile of the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed blanket and the extraction of heat from the pebble beds to the coolant. The effective thermal conductivity of pebble bed has been modeled as the isotropic one. However, the isotropic thermal conductivity inherently can be achieved only the case with perfectly isotropic arrangement which is difficult to realized in the actual blanket device. In this paper, the relation between effective thermal conductivity tensor and fabric tensor in 2D pebble bed is investigated experimentally. It is cleared that the effective thermal conductivity tensor is proportional to the structural anisotropic tensor. And, the anisotropic feature is quite different between core region and near wall region, so that it is suggested that modeling of the effective thermal conductivity tensor of the pebble bed should be separately carried out at least in above two regions.