Preliminary seismic analysis of an innovative near term reactor: Methodology and application

Nuclear power plant (NPP) design is strictly dependent on seismic hazard and safety aspects concerned with the external events of the site. Earthquake resistant structures design requires realistic and accurate physical and theoretical models to describe the response of the nuclear power plants (NPPs) that depend on both the ground motion characteristics and the dynamic properties of the structures themselves. In order to improve the design of new NPPs and, at the same time, to retrofit existing ones the dynamic behaviour of structures subjected to critical seismic excitations that may occur during their expected service life must be evaluated.The aim of this work is to select new effective methods to assess NPPs vulnerability by properly capturing the effects of a safe shutdown earthquake (SSE) event on nuclear structures, like the near term deployment IRIS reactor, and to evaluate the seismic resistance capability of as-built structures systems and components. To attain the purpose a validated deterministic methodology based on an accurate finite element modelling coupled to substructure and time history approaches was employed for studying the overall dynamic behaviour of the NPP relevant components. Moreover the set up three-dimensional model was also validated to evaluate the performance and reliability of the adopted FEM code (mesh refinements and type element influence). This detailed numerical assessment, involving the most widely used finite element numerical codes (MSC.Marc^® and Ansys^®), allowed to solve, perform and simulate as accurately as possible the dynamic behaviour of structures which may withstand a lot of more or less complicate structural problems.To evaluate the accuracy and the reliability as well as to determine the related error of the set-up procedure, the obtained seismic analyses results in term of accelerations, propagated from the ground to the auxiliary building systems and components, and displacements were compared highlighting a very good agreement.