Results of Overpressurization Test of a 1:4-Scale Prestressed Concrete Containment Vessel Model

Abstract

The Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (NUPEC) of Japan and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) have been co-sponsoring and jointly funding a Cooperative Containment Research Program at Sandia National Laboratories. The purpose of the program is to investigate the response of representative models of nuclear containment structures to pressure loading beyond the design basis accident and to compare analytical predictions with measured behavior. This is accomplished by conducting static, pneumatic overpressurization tests of scale models at ambient temperature. The first project in this program was a test of a mixed scale steel containment vessel (SCV). Next, a 1:4-scale model of a prestressed concrete containment vessel (PCCV), representative of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) plant in Japan, was constructed by NUPEC at Sandia National Laboratories from January 1997 through June, 2000. Concurrently, Sandia instrumented the model with over 1500 transducers to measure strain, displacement and forces in the model from prestressing through the pressure testing. The limit state test of the PCCV model was conducted in September, 2000 at Sandia National Laboratories. This paper describes the conduct and some of the results of this test.

Mechanical simulations of SANDIA II tests OECD ISP 48 benchmark

“…The mock-up was built out of 5 different constituents: concrete, steel liner, steel tendons, steel rebars and steel penetration covers. A great number of material tests were carried out by SNL (Hessheimer et al 2003). For the purpose of our analysis mean values were considered.…”

“…Considering the variations in rebar sections, these elements were separated into zones with different characteristics. Their values and positioning are more extensively detailed in (Ghavamian 2005, Hessheimer 2003.…”

Nuclear Power Plant Prestressed Concrete Containment Vessel Structure Monitoring during Integrated Leakage Rate Testing Using Fiber Bragg Grating Sensors

“…Through temperature fall, the prestressing force was applied on every prestress tendon. The temperature fall magnitude was calculated by Equation (2).…”

Structural integrity assessment of nuclear containment through fracture characterization

“…For this reason, a scheme of optical crack profile (OCP) originated through DIC experiment, based on analysis and interpretation of strain data, is implemented in the present model structure. A number of containment model over‐pressure tests have been reported to address the structural integrity issues related to the nuclear containment structures using conventional strain gauges, which could identify the critical locations and global failure modes of the structure. However, the identification of the crack formation, its trajectories during the crack propagation in case of over‐pressure tests, reveals additional information for the fracture characterization and structural integrity assessment of the containment structure.…”