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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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Latest News
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.
Vamsi Krishna K, Gopi Krishna C, Ateekh Ur Rehman, Kishore Babu Nagumothu, Mahesh Kumar Talari, Prakash Srirangam
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 80 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 166-177
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2023.2211723
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The current work aims to examine the influence of various welding speeds (500, 700, and 800 mm/min) on the microstructure and mechanical characteristics of electron beam–welded Ti-6Al-4V alloy joints. The base metal microstructure was composed of a slightly elongated α phase and a transformed β phase, whereas the fusion zone (FZ) exhibited an acicular martensitic α′ microstructure. This is due to faster cooling rates in the FZ associated with electron beam welding. The welds prepared with a 800 mm/min welding speed showed higher strength and lower ductility [yield strength (YS): 959 ± 6 MPa, ultimate tensile strength (UTS): 993 ± 5 MPa, percent elongation (%El): 8] compared to those prepared with 500 mm/min (YS: 909 ± 4 MPa, UTS: 956 ± 5 MPa, %El: 11). This was due to a decrease in the width of the α-platelets in the FZ owing to faster cooling rates at higher welding speeds. For all welding speeds, samples that underwent post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) displayed a noteworthy reduction in both UTS and hardness values compared to all the as-welded samples. However, the welds at lower welding speeds showed lower strength and higher ductility (YS: 868 ± 5 MPa, UTS: 922 ± 4 MPa, %El: 13) compared to higher welding speeds (YS: 892 ± 5 MPa, UTS: 938 ± 6 MPa, %El: 9) after PWHT. This is due to the formation of the diffusional product α + β phase in the FZ, as evidenced by the transmission electron microscope results.