Assessment of Analysis Methods for Seismic Shear Wall Capacity Using JNES/NUPEC Multi-Axial Cyclic and Shaking Table Test Data (NUREG/CR-6925)

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: December 2006
Date Published: January 2007

Prepared by:
J. Xu, J. Nie, J. Braverman and C. Hofmayer

Brookhaven National Laboratory
Upton, NY 11973-5000

S. Ali, NRC Project Manager

Prepared for:
Division of Fuel, Engineering, and Radiological Research
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

Job Code N6076

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Abstract

As part of a program (JCN N-6076) sponsored by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), a study is performed by Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) to assess the performance of analysis methods for computing the seismic response of shear wall structures subjected to strong ground motions and their ultimate seismic failure capacities. The BNL study is accomplished using the multi-axial cyclic and shaking table test data provided by the Japan Nuclear Energy Safety Organization (JNES) and Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation (NUPEC) as part of collaborative efforts between NRC and JNES/NUPEC to study seismic issues important to the safe operation of commercial nuclear power plant (NPP) structures, systems and components (SSC). It is the subject of this report to present and discuss the results and insights of the BNL study.

The BNL study described in this report includes: 1) an assessment of simplified methods for seismic shear wall failure capacity estimates against the JNES/NUPEC cyclic and shaking table test data, 2) an ANACAP finite element (FE) prediction of JNES single and multi-axial cyclic test data, 3) an ANACAP FE 3-D simulation of the JNES/NUPEC shaking table test, and 4) an assessment of the effect of prior damage history on the FE analyses of the seismic response of shear wall structures. This study concluded that both the simplified and FE methods investigated in this report are capable of predicting the ultimate seismic capacity of the JNES/NUPEC shear wall specimens with reasonable accuracy from a practical standpoint. The progressive degrading characteristics of the shear wall specimens were also captured by the BNL analyses, especially the ANACAP FE 3-D dynamic simulation analysis. The NRC staff concludes that the JNES/NUPEC cyclic and shaking table test data discussed in this report can be used as a benchmark for future validations or confirmations of the adequacy of other alternative analytical methods or computer programs for the seismic response analysis of NPP shear wall structures, which were not included in this report for the BNL study.