Overview of the Benchmark Analysis for Piping Support Structures in the Task Force Phase 2-2

Abstract

Piping systems in nuclear power plants exhibit significant elastic-plastic behavior before failure due to displacement responses under severe seismic loads. The current Code Case (JSME NC-CC-008) that was published in 2019 considers the elastic-plastic behavior of the piping system itself but assumes elastic behavior for the support structure. Hence, future Code Case upgrades should incorporate the inelastic behavior of piping support structures. The JSME task group conducted benchmark analyses of piping support structures to establish an evaluation method for their inelastic behavior. The objective of the benchmark analysis was to evaluate the influence of analysis parameters in the elastic-plastic analysis of piping support structures and gain knowledge on analysis result variability. This paper presents an outline of the benchmark analyses and their progress.