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Conference Article: The experimental qualification of a mathematical model used to assess the AGR core seismic response

Shaw, D.C. (National Nuclear Corp. Ltd., Risley (UK))

Abstract

The seismic response of the graphite bricks contained in an Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor core has been determined analytically using a computer code, AGRCOR. The development of this code and the analysis techniques implemented within it are subjects of another paper. A test programme was undertaken to qualify AGRCOR and involved shaker table excitation of increasingly complex arrays of both sliced and full height bricks. The measured responses were then compared with those computed. Both single and multi-axis sinusoidal and earthquake excitation has been used. This paper describes the procedures used to test the more complex, full height brick arrays and discusses the correlation obtained between the measured and computed data. Generally, the agreement was found to be within the error bands calculated by combining all potential experimental and computational errors. Therefore the code was considered to be validated for these cases. In all other cases, the code results were found to be too high, hence conservative, by factors of up to x 4.

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key words: analytical solution; bricks; comparative evaluations; earthquakes; graphite; htgr type reactors; reactor cores; reactor safety; seismic effects; building materials; carbon; computer codes; gas cooled reactors; graphite moderated reactors; materials; reactor components; safety
Reference:
Specialists' meeting on graphite component structural design, JAERI Tokai (Japan), September 8-11, 1986
International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria). International Working Group on Gas-Cooled Reactors
IWGGCR--11, pp:113-119