Resistance of Gable Structure of Nuclear Island to Progressive Collapse in Conventional Island Shield Building of Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

The gable wall of the conventional island of a nuclear power plant carries various pipeline loads connecting the nuclear island and the conventional island. If the gable wall collapses and is damaged due to the progressive collapse of the main plant structure of the conventional island, it will directly threaten the safety of the nuclear island. Therefore, it is of great significance to systematically study the resistance of the gable structure of the nuclear island to progressive collapse for the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Based on the SAP2000 finite element analysis platform, this paper established a model of the reinforced concrete frame structure of the first span of the shield building on the conventional island of a nuclear power plant, including the gable. According to the alternate path method, the node displacement and bearing capacity responses were used to determine the critical components in the gable, and single column failures of the top four in importance were selected as different analysis conditions. Nonlinear static and dynamic methods were used to analyze the displacement, internal force change, hinge sequence of the gable structure on the side of the nuclear island, and the ability of the gable to resist progressive collapse. The analysis results showed that the gable structure of the nuclear island had good resistance to progressive collapse under four single column failure conditions, whether by nonlinear static or dynamic analysis, and the overall vertical displacement obtained by the nonlinear static analysis was larger than that obtained by the dynamic analysis.