Analytical method for solving fluid-structure interactions in BWR pressure suppression pool

An analytical method is developed for solving the fluid-structure interactions (FSI) associated with hydraulic transients in the BWR pressure suppression pool during a hypothetical loss-of-coolant accident. The present method assumes inviscid and infinitestimal motion of pool water for which the governing fluid-dynamics equation reduces to a linear wave equation with inhomogeneous boundary conditions of flexible pool boundaries. The present method is applied to quantitative evaluation of the FSI effect on test data obtained from a large scale pressure suppression test which was performed to investigate the pressure oscillations in the pool induced by unstationary steam condensation. (orig.)