Abstract
After the September 11 attack, the resistant capability of containments against aircraft impacts is required to be assessed for newly constructed nuclear power plants (NPPs). In this paper, the crash of a commercial airplane Boeing 767-200ER on the reinforced concrete containment building of an NPP is analyzed using the missile-target interaction method. Two plane models with the same total weight but different fuel distribution are analyzed. The force-time history obtained by FEA (finite element analysis) is compared with the one calculated by the Riera function. In the integral analysis, the mesh sensitivity of the reinforced concrete containment model is studied, and recommendations are provided on the modelling of containment. The impact phenomenon and damage on the containment are investigated through the validated model. The fuel distribution in the aircraft is found to have strong influence on the damage of the containment, which indicates that the load distribution in the transverse direction is critical in the analysis of aircraft impact. The classic load-time function analysis is unable to incorporate this factor and may not be adequate to provide satisfactory results. For this reason, the application of an integral analysis is advantageous in the safety assessment of aircraft impact.
Highlights
Safety assessment of nuclear power plants subjected to aircraft impact has become a research focus since the terrorist attack in September 11
The U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission [1] and IAEA [2] have established requirements and safety standards in the design of nuclear power plants (NPPs) to protect the integrity of the containment against deliberate and accidental aircraft crash that is expected during the plant lifetime
Two approaches are provided by the NRC [1] to evaluate the aircraft impact response of NPP containments. e first is a decoupled method called the load-time function method, in which the aircraft impact force and response of the containment are calculated in separate steps. e second is an integral method called missile-target interaction analysis, in which the coupled model of the aircraft and containment is solved in a single step [3]
Summary
Safety assessment of nuclear power plants subjected to aircraft impact has become a research focus since the terrorist attack in September 11. E first is a decoupled method called the load-time function method, in which the aircraft impact force and response of the containment are calculated in separate steps. The crash of a commercial airplane Boeing 767-200ER on a reinforced concrete containment was simulated using the missile-target interaction method. En, a missile-target interaction analysis is carried out to investigate the impact phenomenon and assess the damage of the containment during the aircraft impact. E values of DIF are 1.1 and 1.2 for tension and compression, respectively, according to CEB-FIP [28] considering the range of the strain rate in an aircraft impact. Based on the above FE models of the airplane and containment building, the impact of the Boeing 767-200ER airplane crashing on the containment is simulated through the missile-target interaction method using ABAQUS/Explicit. It has been demonstrated that further reduction in the time increment does not result in discrepancies in the calculated results
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