During the past decade, a lot of effort has been spent to develop strategies to mitigate the damaging effects ofrnearthquakes. This work has been directed at both civil structures and nuclear facilities. A highly attractivernstrategy for nuclear facilities, especially for liquid metal reactor plants, is to use seismic isolation. Because therndesign of heavy metal reactors requires the use of a coolant that physically weighs a lot and the use of a thinwalledrnreactor vessel, it is difficult to meet seismic requirements. However by using seismic isolation, it isrnpossible to decouple the reactor building’s response from the strong ground motions.rnUp until September 11, 2001, seismic isolation systems were designed to handle only the seismic threat.rnThreats from aircraft impact were usually not considered because nuclear power plant sites, for the most part,rnwere chosen to be away from airports and, thus, outside of flight paths. Now with the possibility of a deliberaternaircraft crash into a reactor building, existing and future seismic isolation systems must also be evaluated againstrnthis new threat.rnThis paper presents a preliminary study on the response of a reactor building impacted by commercialrnaircraft. The study evaluates the response of a representative seismically isolated reactor building subjected tornseparate impacts from either a Boeing 720 or a 747 aircraft. It is shown that for the representative seismicallyrnisolated reactor building studied, the isolation system response is favourable with a comfortable margin of safety.
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