INNOVATIVE SEISMIC ANALYSIS SOLUTIONS APPLIED ON THE GENERATION MPOWER PROJECT

摘要

Generation mPower LLC is a joint company formed by Babcock & Wilcox Company and Bechtel Power Corporation to design, license, and build the next generation of nuclear power plants based on small modular reactor technology. The Generation mPower (GmP) design is expected to be qualified at many viable sites in the continental United States. The seismic analysis for nuclear facilities is very specific to the site where the project is located, as the soil parameters and anticipated seismic input motions are different in each geographical location. For generic design, consideration must be given to a range of soil properties representative of many viable sites. In addition, the input motion for generic design must be robust enough to address the variable nature of seismic conditions throughout the continental United States. The process of selecting the soil parameters and seismic motions for generic design will be discussed in this paper. One distinguishing feature of the B&W mPower™ Nuclear Island (NI) is the almost fully-embedded structure. The design incorporates a below grade containment and spent fuel pool, which reduces the consequences of aircraft impact or natural phenomena. The embedded nature introduces significant challenges to the seismic Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) analysis of the structure, such as: (a) an increase of the analysis solution time due to the large area of soil-structure interface and (b) the lack of available benchmark results for the analysis of deeply embedded structures. Therefore, the complexities associated with the SSI analysis are significantly greater than those faced in the current state of practice. Hence, several innovative techniques are implemented for the SSI analysis of the NI. These innovative SSI techniques are discussed in this paper.