Design and analysis of multicavity prestressed concrete reactor vessels

A critical state-of-the-art review of multicavity prestressed concrete reactor vessel (PCRV) design and analysis practice is presented. Included are discussions of basic design concepts, the behavior of liners and penetrations, and the various tests required and/or employed to demonstrate acceptance of new vessel geometries and innovations. Brief reviews are given of the influences of design codes such as ACI/ASME Section III, Division 2, and BS4975; analysis methods including elastic, inelastic, and time-dependent techniques; the constitutive equations that are essential to the satisfactory use of these techniques; and semi-empirical methods for calculating ultimate strengths of multicavity vessels. (Auth.)