Blast Loading and Blast Effects on Nuclear Reactor Containment

The design process verification of the structures such as defense building, nuclear power plants, and embankments needs a special structural design to resist the accidental loads or impact loads namely blast loads, missile loads, terrorist attacks, tornadoes and etc. Natural and man-made hazards have the capability to affect technological installations of nuclear power plant structure and putting the surrounding environment at risk. Blast loads are the dynamic loads, which need to be carefully calculated just like earthquake and wind loads. Thus structural design parameters of the nuclear reactor containment has the strong influence on the structural resistance to blast loads. The study presents behaviour of blast loads and parameters. Reactor containment was modelled and analyzed numerically for evaluating the structural response against blast events using finite element software. The stress and displacement of the structure observed for the blast pressure for different capacities of Trinitrotoluene (TNT) and location of blast. Results showed a higher-pressure and smaller blast distance, which is attributed to higher stress developments and displacements of the structure. Based on the blast analysis, stress and displacement variations in terms of TNT capacities and blast locations mass were plotted and the response of the structure was studied.