Earthquake response of nuclear reactor building deeply embedded in soil

Abstract

This paper is concerned with experimental and analytical studies to investigate dynamic behavior of deeply embedded structures such as nuclear reactor buildings. The principal points studied are as follows: (1) Examination of stiffness and radiation damping effects according to embedded depth, (2) verification for distributions of earth pressure according to embedded depth, (3) differences of response characteristics during oscillation according to embedded depth, and (4) proposal of an analytical method for seismic design. Experimental studies were performed by two ways: forced vibration test, and earthquake observation against a rigid body model embedded in soil. Three analytical procedures were performed to compare experimental results and to examine the relation between each procedure. Finally, the dynamic behavior for nuclear reactor buildings with different embedded depths were evaluated by an analytical method.