A study on aseismic performance estimation of a nuclear facility from a viewpoint of structural stability

In estimating aseismic performance of a nuclear facility, structural stability is quantified in terms of ''contact ratio'' of a base considering dynamic soil-structure interaction. However, the maximum response in the time-domain non-linear analysis may strongly depend on the phase characteristics of input motions. The stochastic properties of the overturning moment and ''contact ratio'' are investigated through Monte Carlo simulation using 100 artificial seismic waves synthesized for the multi-damping design response spectra. The fragility curve is also proposed based on random vibration theory and its dependence on both geometric proportion of the structure and the amplitude of input motions is illustrated. (author)