• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.1638-1653
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• 2024

Given the unpredictability of the occurrence of the earthquake and other potential disasters into consideration, the nuclear power plant may be confronted with beyond design-basis earthquake load in the future. The containment structure may be severely damaged under such severe earthquake loading, increasing the risk of containment concrete cracking and potential radioactive materials leaking. Moreover, initial damage caused by the earthquake may significantly alter the pressure performance of the containment under follow-up internal pressure. To compromise the dangers of beyond design-basis earthquake to the containment, an alternative of replacing the conventional concrete with fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) to upgrade the seismic resistance capacity of the containment is attempted and thoroughly researched. In this study, the influence of various fiber types such as rigid fiber and mixed fiber is regarded to constitute fiber-reinforced PCCVs. The physical properties of traditional and fiber-reinforced PCCVs under earthquake ground motions are scientifically compared and identified by using traditional and proposed evaluation indices. The results indicate that both the traditional evaluation index (i.e. top displacement, stress, strain) and the proposed damage index are greatly reduced by the practice of fiber strengthening under earthquake ground motions.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.151-158
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• 2005

For the safety analysis of large structures such as nuclear containment buildings, we conventionally prefer to use analytical approach using finite element method rather than empirical test. Therefor, this paper is mainly focused to develop low-order solid finite element model with the elasto-plastic material model for the safety analysis of nuclear containment building. Drucker-Prager failure criteria in uncracked concrete and maximum tensile stress criteria in cracked concrete are used to model the constitutive behavior of concrete. The concrete material model takes into account the aspects of tensile strain, compression strength reduction of concrete and shear transfer to improve the accuracy of the finite element analysis. Finally, numerical simulation to compare the performance of the developed model with experimental results is employed. The numerical results in this study agree very well with the experimental data.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.729-744
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• 2010

There is world wide concern for safety of nuclear power installations after the terrorist attack on World Trade Center in 2001 and several other civilian structures in the last decade. The nuclear containment structure in many countries is a double shell structure (outer shell a RCC and inner a prestressed concrete). The outer reinforced concrete shell protects the inner shell and is designed for external loading like impact and blast. A comparative study of non-linear response of reinforced concrete nuclear containment cylindrical shell subjected to impact of an aircraft (Phantom) and explosion of different amounts of blast charges have been presented here. A material model which takes into account the strain rate sensitivity in dynamic loading situations, plastic and visco-plastic behavior in three dimensional stress state and cracking in tension has been developed earlier and implemented into a finite element code which has been validated with published literature. The analysis has been made using the developed software. Significant conclusions have been drawn for dissimilarity in response (deflections, stresses, cracks etc.) of the shell for impact and blast loading.

• Proceedings of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.90-97
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• 1997

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the seismic response characteristics of Wolsong nuclear power plant (NPP) structures for the Kyeongju earthquake(ML=4.3) occurred on June 26, 1997. The seismograms are obtained from five accelerographs of nuclear power plant at Wolsong, Kyeongbuk. The distance from the epicenter is about 25km. The peak acceleration (PA) due to the earthquake is 0.0235g, which is far lower value than that of design basis earthquake(DBE). The PA at the containment wall is about twice as large as that at free field. Also, the higher the accelerograph is located in, the larger the PA is measured to be From the response spectrum analysis, the dominant frequency of the response is close to 4 Hz, which is similar to the free field is poor because of contamination by high frequency waves as a result of reflection and diffraction between ground and NPP structure. We are of opinion that the accelerograph at the free field should be moved approximately twice the building dimension away from the containment structure.

• Magazine of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.34-40
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• 2000

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.817-824
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• 2010

The concrete containment structures have been widely used in nuclear power plants, LNG storage tanks, etc., due to their high safety and economic efficiency. The containment structure consists of a bottom slab, wall, ring beam and dome. The shape of the roof dome has a very significant effect on structural safety, the quantity of materials, and constructability; the thickness and curvature of the dome should therefore be determined to give the optimum design. The ring beam plays the role as supports for the dome, resulting in a minimized deformation of the wall. The main issues in designing the ring beam are the correct dimensions of the section and the prestress level. In this study, an efficient design procedure is proposed that can be used to determine an optimal shape and prestress level of the dome and ring beam. In the preliminary design stage of the procedure, the membrane theory of shells of revolution is adopted to determine several plausible alternatives which can be obtained even by hand calculation. Based on the proposed procedures, domes and ring beams of the existing domestic containment structures are analyzed and some improvements are discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.12
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• pp.4504-4517
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• 2023

After a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) in the prestressed concrete containment vessels (PCCVs) of nuclear power plants, the coupling of temperature and pressure can significantly affect the mechanical properties of the PCCVs. However, there is no consensus on how this coupling affects the failure mechanism of PCCVs. In this paper, a simplified finite element modeling method is proposed to study the effect of temperature and pressure coupling on PCCVs. The experiment results of a 1:4 scale PCCV model tested at Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) are compared with the results obtained from the proposed modeling approach. Seven working conditions are set up by varying the internal and external temperatures to investigate the failure mechanism of the PCCV model under the coupling effect of temperature and pressure. The results of this paper demonstrate that the finite element model established by the simplified finite element method proposed in this paper is highly consistent with the experimental results. Furthermore, the stress-displacement curve of the PCCV during loading can be divided into four stages, each of which corresponds to the damage to the concrete, steel liner, steel rebar, and prestressing tendon. Finally, the failure mechanism of the PCCV is significantly affected by temperature.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2696-2707
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficiency of various structural modeling schemes for evaluating seismic performances and fragility of the reactor containment building (RCB) structure in the advanced power reactor 1400 (APR1400) nuclear power plant (NPP). Four structural modeling schemes, i.e. lumped-mass stick model (LMSM), solid-based finite element model (Solid FEM), multi-layer shell model (MLSM), and beam-truss model (BTM), are developed to simulate the seismic behaviors of the containment structure. A full three-dimensional finite element model (full 3D FEM) is additionally constructed to verify the previous numerical models. A set of input ground motions with response spectra matching to the US NRC 1.60 design spectrum is generated to perform linear and nonlinear time-history analyses. Floor response spectra (FRS) and floor displacements are obtained at the different elevations of the structure since they are critical outputs for evaluating the seismic vulnerability of RCB and secondary components. The results show that the difference in seismic responses between linear and nonlinear analyses gets larger as an earthquake intensity increases. It is observed that the linear analysis underestimates floor displacements while it overestimates floor accelerations. Moreover, a systematic assessment of the capability and efficiency of each structural model is presented thoroughly. MLSM can be an alternative approach to a full 3D FEM, which is complicated in modeling and extremely time-consuming in dynamic analyses. Specifically, BTM is recommended as the optimal model for evaluating the nonlinear seismic performance of NPP structures. Thereafter, linear and nonlinear BTM are employed in a series of time-history analyses to develop fragility curves of RCB for different damage states. It is shown that the linear analysis underestimates the probability of damage of RCB at a given earthquake intensity when compared to the nonlinear analysis. The nonlinear analysis approach is highly suggested for assessing the vulnerability of NPP structures.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.403-414
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• 1994

Nonlinear analysis of RC containment structure under thermal load and pressure is presented to trace the behaviour after an assumed LOCA. The temperature distribution varying with time through the wall thickness is determined by transient finite element analysis with the two time level scheme in time domain. The layered shell finite elements are used to represent the containment structures in nuclear power plants. Both geometric and material nonlinearities are taken into account in the finite element formulation. The constitutive relation of concrete is modeled according to Drucker-Prager yield criteria in compression. Tension stiffening model is used to represent the tensile behaviour of concrete including bond effect. The reinforcing bars are modeled by smeared layer at the location of reinforcements accounting elasto-plastic axial behaviors. The steel liner model under Von Mises yield criteria is adopted to represent elastic-perfect plastic behaviour. Geometric nonlinearity is formulated to consider the large displacement effect. Thermal stress components are determined by the initial strain concept during each time step. The temperature differential between any two consecutive time steps is considered as a load incremental. The numerical results from this study reveal that nonlinear temperature gradient based on transient thermal analysis will produces excessive large displacement. Nonlinear behavior of containment structures up to ultimate stage can be traced reallistically. The present study allows more realistic analysis of concrete containment structures in nuclear power plants.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.381-388
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• 2012

In this study, a seismic risk analysis performed for an applicability assessment of steel fiber in containment structures. Steel fiber can increase tensile properties of concrete structures moreover compressive and shear capacity. But many of researches about steel fiber reinforced concrete structures are now only focused in axial load condition. Also it is very difficult to find an effort for application to containment structures in NPP. Therefore, in this study, seismic fragility assessment for a steel fiber reinforced concrete containment structure. As a result, a seismic fragility capacity improved according to increase of shear and ductile capacity of concrete. In the case of 1.0% of steel fiber volume fraction, seismic capacity increases as 10%. But very limited previous experimental results were used in this study, so various element tests were needed for more accurate investigation.