Design and analysis of isolation effectiveness for three-dimensional base-seismic isolation of nuclear island building

Abstract

In order to investigate the application of 3D base-seismic isolation system in nuclear power plants (NPPs), comprehensive analysis of constitution and design theory for 3-dimensional combined isolation bearing (3D-CIB) was presented and derived. Four different vertical stiffness of 3D-CIB was designed to isolate the nuclear island (NI) building. This paper aimed at investigating the isolation effectiveness of 3D-CIB through modal analysis and dynamic time-history analysis. Numerical results in terms of dynamic response of 3D-CIB, relative displacement response, acceleration and floor response spectra (FRS) of the superstructure were compared to validate the reliability of 3D-CIB in mitigating seismic response. The results showed that 3D-CIB can significantly attenuate the horizontal acceleration response, and a fair amount of the vertical acceleration response reduction of the upper structure was still observed. 3D-CIB plays a significant role in reducing the horizontal and vertical FRS, the vertical FRS basically do not vary with the floor height. The smaller the vertical stiffness of 3D-CIB is, the better the vertical isolation effectiveness is, whereas, it will increase the displacement and the rocking effect of superstructure. Although the advantage of 3D-CIB is that the vertical stiffness can be flexibly adjusted, it should be designed by properly accounting for the balance between the isolation effectiveness and displacement control including rocking effect. The results of this study can provide the technical basis and guidance for the application of 3D-CIB to engineering structure.