Based on the shock damage propagation distances and the median fragility limit of the equipments, the NEI 07–13 employs the shock damage rules for determining the potential for affecting safe shutdown and fuel cooling equipments. However, the NEI 07–13 does not provide more detailed guidance for performing the shock damage assessments, because both the shock damage distances and the methodology for developing the median fragility limit are not provided in NEI 07–13.
This paper discussed methodology developed for performing simplified assessments for shock effects considering the material nonlinearity of the impact zone and the soil-structure interaction. Three different models (i.e., linear model, nonlinear mode, and SSI model) were developed to calculate the in-structure shock response. The results of the linear model show the shock response due to aircraft impact would completely propagate from the center of initial impact zone and then along a structure pathway (e.g. wall, floor, basemat) to the in-structure without any energy dissipation. As a result, the in-structure shock response spectra are considerably higher than the spectra associated with the design-basis earthquake in the high frequency range.
In order to reduce the shock effects on the in-structure safety-related systems and equipments, the material nonlinearity of the impact zone and the soil-structure interaction were incorporated in the dynamic analysis.
The numerical results show that both the material nonlinearity and the soil-structure interaction would obviously absorb the energy of the shock waves, so the in-structure shock response spectra were reduced due to these two factors. Finally, the representative shock response spectra were compared with those used in the seismic margin assessment in order to assess specific equipment survival.
