A study on the nonlinear analysis of a 1/4 scale prestressed concrete containment vessel model

The main objective of this research is to carry out a nonlinear finite element analysis of a 1/4 scale prestressed concrete containment jointly tested by the NUPEC and NRC. The nonlinear FE analysis uses the commercial program ABAQUS and considers the 2D axisymmetric model and 3D model. A 2D axisymmetric analysis is carried out using four concrete material models which are the Drucker-Prager Model, Chen-Chen Model, Damaged Plasticity Model and Menetrey-Willam Model. The tension stiffening model used is the Hsu and Okamura model. The tension stiffening parameter and the uplift effect due to a basemat are considered for the global behavior of the PCCV. The analysis results have a good agreement with experimental data when the concrete material models used are the Drucker-Prager Model and Damaged Plasticity Model, when the tension stiffening model used is the Okamura model, when tension stiffening parameter is c=0.2. The research results through this study can be directly used as a benchmarking test for the development of a numerical analysis system for a nuclear containment building