THE TEST METHODOLOGY TO EVALUATE ULTIMATE EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE OF AN NPP BUILDING USING EARTHQUAKE GROUND MOTION BY BLASTING

摘要

This paper describes new test methodology to obtain data to be used to evaluate ultimate seismic strength of Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) structures. The paper firstly reviews existing seismic test data of NPP structures from the viewpoint of the evaluation of their ultimate seismic strength and/or seismic design margins, and extracts the issues in the existing data with regard to their applicability to the evaluation. Then the paper proposes new test methodology for NPP structures to evaluate their ultimate seismic strength. The test methodology employs artificial earthquake ground motions generated in an open-air coal mine that have a large acceleration up to 2g. The large artificial earthquake ground motion is applied to a scaled NPP building model. Then we confirm its ultimate strength including its ultimate Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) effect. The test methodology present herein is cost effective for obtaining test data that are indispensable for evaluating properly seismic margins of NPPs.