Ultimate strength of a thin wall tee for sodium cooled fast reactors under seismic loads

Watakabe, Tomoyoshi; Takahashi, Hideki*

To ensure the seismic integrity of Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors, both confirming the ultimate strength under a high-level earthquake beyond the design condition and clarifying the design safety margin up to ultimate strength have been focused as important issues. In this study, a series of dynamic failure tests of a thin wall tee for Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors was conducted. Some discussions related to the thin wall tee are provided on the failure mode under seismic load, dynamic response behavior, accuracy of fatigue prediction by dynamic elastic-plastic analysis, and a safety margin of fatigue evaluation which is included in conventional design rule.