Evaluation of seismic capacity of glovebox windows using deformation tests

With the increasing emphasis on worker safety, gloveboxes are being relied upon in Safety Analyses to be a confinement boundary. Many of the accident scenarios result in a requirement that these gloveboxes be seismically qualified. Since there is currently no validated experience data category for gloveboxes, the qualification has generally been done by analysis. The weak link in assuring confinement integrity by analysis is in characterizing the glass and glass-to-glovebox seal in the analytical models. engineering judgement as to whether the windows will survive a seismic event based on total calculated deflection at the window. Most often the windows are assumed to lose their confinement capability during an earthquake. A quantitative basis is needed in order to evaluate the seismic capacity of these windows. A series of deformation tests are being performed at the Savannah River Site on glovebox mock-ups. This paper presents the results of the first two of these tests, including displacement profiles and leak rate data. Methods for using this data for evaluating the windows for seismic loads are proposed