Fundamental Study of the Potential Application of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete to Enhance the Impact Resistance of Nuclear Power Plant Structures

Abstract

Concrete has been used as one of the major building materials for nuclear power plant (NPP) structures. While NPP structures of conventional concrete mixtures are considered to provide sufficient shielding capacities in terms of both structural containment and radiation barrier, further demands have been added to ensure and enhance the structural safety with considerations of aircraft impacts and/or earthquakes. To improve the impact resistance of the concrete itself, this paper presents the potential application of steel fibers as additives with no variation of the concrete mixture proportions that are currently used for NPP structures in Korea. Different types of steel fibers with variations of addition volumes were applied to the concrete mixtures and various kinds of mechanical properties such as strength, toughness, and fracture energy were evaluated. From the experimental results, a practical addition proportion and a type of steel fiber were chosen for the potential application to NPP structures. .