Seismic responses of an unanchored generic fixture with different simulated boundary conditions

In the design of equipment for seismic loadings, it is common to anchor the equipment to prevent tipping or sliding. However, there are situations where the equipment should not be anchored. An unanchored piece of equipment is held to the floor only by the gravitational effect and, in the absence of friction, it could move freely. In the analytical investigation of an unanchored item during a seismic event, there is uncertainty on the proper simulation of the boundary conditions so that the analysis model will have no rigid-body motion. Seismic responses of a simple analytical model that is representative of a group of unanchored equipment have been investigated with different sets of simulated boundary conditions. The results show that, when the main interest of investigation is to assess the potential for tipping during an earthquake, the case with one of the four supporting pads simply supported, its two neighboring pads constrained against twisting motion, and all pads without vertical displacements yields the most conservative prediction. The analysis is applied to the fuel processing cell of the Integral Fast Reactor project. In order not to breach the liner of the existing facility and to keep operational flexibility of the fixtures, all new equipment to be installed within the fuel processing cell are required to be unanchored