A Study on the Performance of Prestressed Concrete Containment with Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Tendons under Internal Pressure

Abstract

As the last barrier to preventing nuclear leakage, it is crucial to enhance the load-bearing capacity and cracking resistance of nuclear containment under internal pressure accidents. Currently, fiber-reinforced polymers are widely used in prestressing concrete structures because of their superior performance, but little research has been conducted on fiber-reinforced polymers in the field of nuclear power plants. In this paper, carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) is used as a prestressing tendon material instead of traditional steel strands to study the damage mode of the new type of containment under internal pressure and the feasibility of using CFRP as prestressing tendons. In this study, a three-dimensional refinement model is established, employing ABAQUS 2020 software to analyze and quantify the pressure-bearing performance of nuclear containment with CFRP tendons and finally determine the reasonable range of CFRP tendons that can be used as a replacement. The research shows that the containment with CFRP tendons has an obvious strengthening effect in delaying the generation of cracks, restraining the speed of crack development, reducing the plastic damage of the steel liner, and improving the ultimate bearing capacity of the containment.