Abstract
In the nuclear energy industry, most of the major components are anchored to the civil works using numerous types of supports devices. These anchorages are big issues of the nuclear plant design: the implantation of the components has to be fixed definitely, stress concentration in the surroundings of the anchorage, and for immersed structure, possible loss of the impermeability. Thereby, under certain safety regulations, some structures lay directly on the ground. This is the case for in air or underwater structure, such as fuel storage racks. This solution gives more flexibility in the use of the components and a decrease of the stress. However, one has to evaluate precisely the behavior of this sliding structure, and in particular, the cumulated sliding displacement during a seismic event in order to prevent any impact with other components. During a seismic event, the unanchored structure can slide, rotate and tilt. The aim of this paper is to present analytical solutions to estimate the sliding amplitudes of different simplified systems which represent a given dynamic behavior. These simplified models are: a sliding mass and a complex sliding structure defined by its eigenmodes. Each simplified system corresponds to a different set of assumptions made on the flexibility of the structure. Two analytical solutions are presented in this article: single sliding mass and a vertical sliding beam. In each model, the fluid-structure interaction between the immersed body and the pool is modeled as hydrodynamic masses. The sliding is represented by Coulomb friction. The seismic loading can be any 3D seismic accelerogram. The analytical solutions are obtained considering the different phases of the movement and the continuity between each phase. The results are then compared to the values computed with the commercial Finite Element package AN SY S^<TM>. The analytical curves show a good fit of the computational results.
