Abstract
This paper deals with the rocking motion of cabinets and the acceleration of electronics in cabinets. In power plants or chemical plants, there are many control cabinets containing important electronics. In many cases, these cabinets are put directly. Thus, it is thought that in the worst case, cabinets may turn over by rocking motion during earthquakes and electronics may be in danger of breaking. Therefore, it is needed to develop methods that can suppress rocking motion and prevent electronics damage simultaneously. In this study, adjacent cabinets are connected with an elasto-plastic damper. The elasto-plastic damper has bilinear hysteretic characteristics and can absorb the energy of earthquake inputs. Firstly,we consider the single cabinet with electronics. The cabinet is modeled as a rotating rigid body around its corner. The internal electronics are modeled as a mass moving in the translational direction in the cabinet. This system is referred to as single cabinet system. We evaluate the maximum rocking angle of single cabinet and the maximum acceleration of electronics in single cabinet for base excitation. Next, we consider the adjacent cabinets connected by an elasto-plastic damper containing electronics. The cabinets are modeled as rotating rigid bodies. The internal electronics are modeled as masses moving in the translational direction in the cabinets. The whole system is known as a connected cabinet system. We simulate connected cabinets under the same conditions. Thus we compare the maximum rocking angle and the maximum acceleration of the single system with that of the connected system. Finally, we change the connecting position of elasto-plastic damper to understand the effects on rocking prevention and internal electronics protection. As a result,it was found that selecting the appropriate connecting position is effective in rocking prevention and internal electronics protection.
