Study on the dynamic response analysis for evaluating the effectiveness of base isolation for nuclear components

Introduction of the base isolation technique into the seismic design of nuclear power plant components as well as buildings has been expected as one of the effective countermeasure to reduce the seismic force applied to components. A research program on the base isolation of nuclear components has been carried out at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) since 1991. A methodology and a computer code (EBISA: Equipment Base Isolation System Analysis) for evaluating the failure frequency of the nuclear component with the base isolation were developed. In addition, a test program, which is concerned with the above development, aiming at improvement of failure frequency analysis models in the code has been conducted since 1996 to investigate the dynamic behavior and to verify the effectiveness of component base isolation systems. In the failure frequency analysis, methodology for evaluating the actual dynamic responses of the nuclear components with the base isolation in detail has been examined. In the methodology, the actual responses are computed by considering the scatter in mechanical properties of rock masses, reactor building and components under many earthquake motions with various frequency characteristics. The failure frequency of component is computed as the conditional probability where the actual response exceeds the capacity of components. It is a very important in the above methodology to investigates the dynamic response analysis method for the ground, reactor building and nuclear components as well as the scattering factors in the dynamic analysis. This report describes the accuracy of the dynamic response analysis method and analysis models, and the influence of scatters in properties of rock masses and reactor building on the dynamic response. (author)