This paper addresses the influence of support gaps in the analyses of a piping system when subjected to a seismic hard rock high-frequency load. The system is located within the reactor containment building of a nuclear power plant and is assessed to be susceptible to high-frequency loads. The stress response of the pipe and the acceleration response of the valves are evaluated for different support gap sizes. It is shown that the inclusion of the support gaps in the analyses reduces the stress response for almost all pipe elements. On the other hand, the acceleration response of the valves is not necessarily reduced by the consideration of the gaps.

This paper presents a study on water filled pools within nuclear facilities subjected to seismic loads. The type of structure studied is an elevated rectangular concrete tank, supported by the reactor containment, which is a high cylindrical concrete structure. Seismic analysis is performed using finite element models, accounting for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) between the water and the concrete structure. The stresses in a concrete pool are calculated, also investigating the changes in stresses as additional cross-walls are added. The effects from earthquakes dominated by low and high frequencies are evaluated, representative for conditions at the West coast of North America and Northern Europe, respectively. It is shown that the coupled fluid-structure systems have more significant modes in the high frequency range compared to the models without water, that is, for frequencies at which the Northern European type earthquake has significant energy compared to the Western North American earthquake. The seismic analyses show that the relative increase of hydrodynamic pressure is higher when the outer walls of the pool are stiffened due to the inclusion of additional cross-walls. With the inclusion of additional cross-walls, modes with lower natural frequencies, although still relatively high, become more important for the hydrodynamic pressure response. Leading to a higher stress response in the outer walls of the pool for models including the additional cross-walls compared to models without cross-walls. The study indicates that the effect from fluid-structure interaction is of great importance also for seismic loads with relatively high-frequency content.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate different approaches to account for fluid-structure interaction (FSI) in seismic analyses of nuclear facilities. Different methods to account for FSI, from simplified to highly advanced numerical methods, are briefly reviewed and some important concepts are discussed. A benchmark example of a simple tank sloshing problem is included to evaluate the use of different FSI methods.

The main conclusion from the study is that it is of great significance to first of all include the effect of FSI. When considering the response of a tank subjected to a load of periodic nature, as in the benchmark example, the hydrodynamic effects are very important, since they increase the load effect on the structure. It is also observed that the simplified methods, in which the hydrodynamic effects are included as a mass-spring system, results in much higher stresses in the structure than if the fluid is included as continuum elements. However, the more advanced methods lead to extra computational time and also require more from the analyst. With the focus of this project being the global response of the structure, most methods describe the fluid unnecessarily complicated and phenomena such as splashing and turbulence are of little interest. The main aspects that influence the structure are the mass and inertia of the fluid along with the surface waves, the sloshing. Considering this, simplified methods such as elements with acoustic equations, and even mass-spring systems, to represent the fluid, often give results that are accurate enough.