Ultimate internal pressure of Prestressed Concrete Containment Vessel analyzed by an integral constitutive model

Abstract

This work focuses on the safety margin of Prestressed Concrete Containment Vessel (PCCV) under internal pressure beyond the design load up to its ultimate strength. Due to the complicated configurations of rebars and tendons, an integral constitutive model was developed to simulate the PCCV to reduce computational complexity and improve calculation efficiency. The integral stress-strain relationship considers the nonlinear properties of concrete, rebars and tendons, and can reflect the material failure procedure. The PCCV model is three-dimensional axisymmetric and considers critical structural characteristics. Our numerical results can successfully predict the failure mode. The maximum deflection is expected at the mid-height of the wall near the equipment hatch hole. When the strain of the steel liner reaches tearing strain 3×10−3, the corresponding internal pressure is 3.04 Pd (design pressure) which meets the internationally required value (2.5 Pd). And our analysis is in good agreement with most of the previous results.