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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.
Naphtali M. Mokgalapa, Tushar K. Ghosh, Robert V. Tompson, Sudarshan K. Loyalka
Nuclear Technology | Volume 203 | Number 3 | September 2018 | Pages 336-347
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1453729
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Graphite dust is generated in the reactor core during normal operation of very high temperature reactors (VHTRs). This dust is transported throughout the reactor circuit and plates-out at different locations. The resuspension of graphite dust is believed to be a major contributor to the nuclear source term. The adhesion force is an important parameter governing the resuspension of the dust. The present study employed an atomic force microscope to measure the adhesive force between a reactor-grade graphite cluster “particle” and VHTR structural materials including Inconel 617 and Hastelloy X in an air glove box. Results for a reactor-grade graphite (MLRF-1 from SGL Carbon Ltd.) cluster particle interacting with Inconel 617 and Hastelloy X samples are reported under four different surface conditions including as received, and after 5, 10, and 15 min of oxidation. These forces were also predicted using the Johnson-Kendall-Roberts theoretical model with the estimate of the work of adhesion. The measured values depend on oxidation times but are in general a factor of about 20 lower than the predicted values. With surface roughness taken into account, the predicted values differ from the measured values by factors of 2 and 4 at the maximum for Hastelloy X and Inconel 617, respectively.