Development of Sensitivity Analysis Code for Elastic-Plastic Dynamic Response of Piping Systems

Abstract

A sensitivity analysis code for the elastic-plastic dynamic response of piping systems is developed in the context of implicit time integration schemes. The formulation of sensitivity analysis originates in the perturbation method and retains its advantage. Namely, the decomposed effective stiffness matrix after the iteration for each increment is efficiently used to compute the sensitivity of any parameter involved in the piping system. A residual heat remover of a PWR (pressurized water reactor) under an earthquake loading is analyzed based on the present method with the isoparametric elbow element proposed by Bathe, and satisfactory results are obtained.