Steel containment resistance under general dynamic pressures

Severe accident loadings on containments can include combinations of uniform internal pressure, dynamic pressure and seismic loadings. The objective of this work is to develop a methodology for calculating the ultimate capacity of steel containments under very general global or local, uniform or spatially varying dynamic loadings. An axisymmetric geometric model is used and the circumferential variation of the loads is expressed in terms of Fourier series components. The solution, i.e., displacement and stress resultants at any point of time, are obtained and also represented by Fourier series components. A computer program called LOADS was written to evaluate the point-in-time displacements and stress resultants. This program uses the results obtained from a modified BOSOR4 modal analysis program. The results of the LOADS program are input into a modified BOSOR5 computer code to evaluate the containment resistance which considers large deformation and material nonlinear behavior. A user's manual for the BOSOR4/LOADS/BOSOR5 program set is presented. The modified BOSOR codes and the LOADS program are installed on the Brookhaven National Laboratory VAX system. 59 refs., 23 figs., 22 tabs