Trial Model Tests With Simulation Material to Obtain Failure Modes of Pipes Under Excessive Seismic Loads

Author(s):  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Naoto Kasahara

Piping systems are one of the central components of NPP; It is well known that the major failure mode under seismic loads is likely to be fatigue failure. Other failure modes, however, such as ratchet-buckling failure, have been reported to occur under particular conditions. It is necessary to clarify the conditions that cause different failure modes of piping systems under very high seismic motion, but experimental studies with steel pipes are difficult to achieve, mainly due to the limitations of testing facilities and safety concerns. In order to overcome such difficulties, we propose a new experimental approach that uses pipes made of a simulation material instead of steel. Lead (Pb) pipes were used for the simulation material, and shaking table tests were conducted on lead elbow pipe specimens. Results showed that ratchet-collapse and overall deformation of pipe specimens were possible failure modes. The ratchet-collapse failure mode appeared to be affected not only by input acceleration level but also by the direction of gravity, the primary constant stress level of its own weight, and the frequencies of the input motion. The dynamic behaviors of pipes in the high inelastic region where a nearly fully plastic section was assumed were quite different from those in the elastic region, and those of the steel pipes in previous studies. We demonstrate that the proposed test approach is effective for qualitatively clarifying various kinds of failure behaviors with large plasticity under excessive seismic load.

Author(s):  
Zhen-Yu Lin ◽  
Fan-Ru Lin ◽  
Juin-Fu Chai ◽  
Kuo-Chun Chang

Based on the issue of life safety and immediate needs of emergency medical services provided by hospitals after strong earthquakes, this paper aims to introduce a research programme on assessment and improvement strategies for a typical configuration of sprinkler piping systems in hospitals. The study involved component tests and subsystem tests. Cyclic loading tests were conducted to investigate the inelastic behaviour of components including concrete anchorages, screwed fittings of small-bore pipes and couplings. Parts of a horizontal piping system of a seismic damaged sprinkler piping system were tested using shaking table tests. Furthermore, horizontal piping subsystems with seismic resistant devices such as braces, flexible pipes and couplings were also tested. The test results showed that the main cause of damage was the poor capacity of a screwed fitting of the small-bore tee branch. The optimum improvement strategy to achieve a higher nonstructural performance level for the horizontal piping subsystem is to strengthen the main pipe with braces and decrease moment demands on the tee branch by the use of flexible pipes. The hysteresis loops and failure modes of components were further discussed and will be used to conduct numerical analysis of sprinkler piping systems in future studies.


Author(s):  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Naoto Kasahara

Abstract To investigate the failure behavior of piping systems under excessive seismic loads, shaking table tests on piping system models made of a simulation material have been executed. The simulation material adopted in the experiment was lead-antimony (Pb-Sb) alloy. The piping system model was composed of two elbows made of Pb-Sb alloy, one additional mass, and two fixed anchors. Input motions were sinusoidal wave. The failure modes of the piping system were examined by varying the additional mass and frequency of the input sinusoidal wave. Through the excitation tests, the failure mode which was named as “ratchet and subsequent collapse” was obtained successfully. The result which was classified as “no failure after 500 cycles” was also obtained. It was found that the occurrence of the failure depended on the ratio of the input frequency to the specimen’s natural frequency, and the ratio of additional mass weight to the limit mass weight. Though the effect of higher modes on the failure behavior was necessary to be more investigated, it seemed that the tendency of dominant failure behavior was similar to that of the single-elbow specimen investigated in the previous study. Moreover, it was confirmed that the experimental approach to use a simulation material was applicable for piping system model with multiple elbows.


Author(s):  
Md Abdullah Al Bari ◽  
Ryota Sakemi ◽  
Naoto Kasahara

Preparation for beyond design basis events (BDBE) becomes an important issue as the lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident. IAEA proposed the best estimation approach for strength evaluation under BDBE. It is required to identify dominant failure modes for best estimation approach. Ratcheting, collapse and fatigue are the probable failure modes which can occur due to dynamic loadings like the seismic load. The current studies describe an attempt to clarify occurrence conditions of such failure mode as ratcheting and collapse for pipes. Elbow pipe components have been analyzed by using the inelastic finite element method. Gravity load was the primary loads, while the base acceleration of sinusoidal waveform of different frequencies was considered as pseudo secondary load. The results have been put in a nondimensional stress parameter plot similar to the Bree diagram for thermal ratcheting, paying attention to the similarity between thermal load and dynamic load. From above results, authors have proposed the failure mode map which can evaluate the occurrence conditions of ratcheting and collapse failure mode for pipes under dynamic loadings.


Author(s):  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Naoto Kasahara

Abstract To investigate the failure behavior of piping systems under severe seismic loads considering beyond design basis event (BDBE), an experimental approach to use pipes made of simulation materials was applied. "Simulation material" means the substitute material for steel to realize the structural experiment by the existing testing facilities. The simulation materials adopted in this study were pure lead (Pb) or lead-antimony (Pb-Sb) alloy. Using pipe elbows made of simulation materials, static loading tests on elbows and shaking table tests on simple piping system models composed of one or two elbows and an additional mass were conducted. From the static loading tests, the load-deflection relationship of an elbow under monotonic loading was obtained as well as the fatigue failure modes under cyclic loading depending on the several cyclic displacement levels. From the shaking table tests, several failure modes were obtained, namely, "Collapse by self-weight", "Collapse by a few cycles of input", "Ratchet and subsequent collapse", "Overall deformation", and "No failure". It was considered that the occurrence of these failure modes was affected by the ratio of the input frequency to the specimen's natural frequency, the ratio of additional mass weight to the limit mass weight, the configuration of the specimen, and the input acceleration level. The experimental results indicated that it was crucial to understand the structure's ultimate behavior when treating BDBE, and that the research approach using simulation material is effective to investigate the ultimate behavior of piping systems.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Akihito Otani ◽  
Masaki Shiratori

Pressurized piping systems used for an extended period may develop degradations such as wall thinning or cracks due to aging. It is important to estimate the effects of degradation on the dynamic behavior and to ascertain the failure modes and remaining strength of the piping systems with degradation through experiments and analyses to ensure the seismic safety of degraded piping systems under destructive seismic events. In order to investigate the influence of degradation on the dynamic behavior and failure modes of piping systems with local wall thinning, shake table tests using 3D piping system models were conducted. About 50% full circumferential wall thinning at elbows was considered in the test. Three types of models were used in the shake table tests. The difference of the models was the applied bending direction to the thinned-wall elbow. The bending direction considered in the tests was either of the in-plane bending, out-of-plane bending, or mixed bending of the in-plane and out-of-plane. These models were excited under the same input acceleration until failure occurred. Through these tests, the vibration characteristic and failure modes of the piping models with wall thinning under seismic load were obtained. The test results showed that the out-of-plane bending is not significant for a sound elbow, but should be considered for a thinned-wall elbow, because the life of the piping models with wall thinning subjected to out-of-plane bending may reduce significantly.


Author(s):  
Satoshi Tsunoi ◽  
Akira Mikami ◽  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Akihito Otani ◽  
Masaki Shiratori

The authors have proposed an analytical model by which they can simulate the dynamic and failure behaviors of piping systems with local wall thinning against seismic loadings. In the previous paper [13], the authors have carried out a series of experimental investigations about dynamic and failure behaviors of the piping system with fully circumferential 50% wall thinning at an elbow or two elbows. In this paper these experiments have been simulated by using the above proposed analytical model and investigated to what extent they can catch the experimental behaviors by simulations.


Author(s):  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Akihito Otani ◽  
Masaki Shiratori

In order to investigate the influence of degradation on the dynamic behavior and failure modes of piping systems with local wall thinning, shake table tests using 3-D piping system models were conducted. About 50% full circumferential wall thinning at elbows was considered in the test. Three types of models were used in the shake table tests. The difference of the models was the applied bending direction to the thinned wall elbow. The bending direction considered in the tests was either of the in-plane bending, out-of-plane bending, or mixed bending of the in-plane and out-of-plane. These models were excited under the same input acceleration until failure occurred. Through these tests, the vibration characteristic and failure modes of piping models with wall thinning under seismic load were obtained. The test results showed that the out-of-plane bending is not significant for a sound elbow, but should be considered for a thinned wall elbow, because the life of piping models with wall thinning subjected to out-of-plane bending may reduce significantly.


Author(s):  
Takumi Ito ◽  
Kenjiro Mori ◽  
Takeshi Matsumoto

Recently, there are many discussions about repairability and recovery for damaged buildings after severe disasters, and new keywords such as “Resilience” and “Redundancy” have been closed-up. This paper investigates the repairability of damaged steel building structures which experienced severe disasters such as earthquake input motions. At first, the analytical model for repaired steel member is explained, and also its applicability is represented by comparison with past test results. The next, the ultimate states of steel framed model of original state and repairing state under seismic loads are calculated by limit analysis. Herein, an analytical frame model is designed that the whole story collapse mode is predominated in original state. And also, to adjust the failure mode of frame after repair, a various strategy of repairing portion in frame is assumed. From the analytical results, it is observed that the strength and energy absorption are enhanced if the adequate repairing strategy is adopted to generate the whole collapse failure mode. That is, it can be said that these repaired frame has high repairability and resilience.


Author(s):  
Izumi Nakamura ◽  
Akihito Otani ◽  
Masaki Shiratori

Pressurized piping systems used in nuclear power plants are supposed to be degraded by the effects of aging. Local wall thinning is one of the defects considered to be caused in piping systems due to the effects of aging, but the failure behavior of thinned wall pipes under seismic load is still not clear. Therefore an experimental and analytical study to clarify the failure behavior of thinned wall pipes is being conducted. In this paper, the experimental results of locally thinned wall elbows under cyclic bending load are described. Displacement-controlled cyclic bending tests were conducted on elbows with local wall thinning. The test models were pressurized to 10MPa with room temperature water and were subjected to in-plane or/and out-of-plane cyclic bending load until their failures. From the tests, the failure modes of the thinned wall elbows were found to be fatigue failure at the flank of the elbow, or fatigue and buckling failure accompanied with ratchet deformation. It was also found that the life of the thinned wall elbow subjected to out-of-plane bending were extremely lower than that of the elbow without wall thinning. The failure modes and fatigue lives of elbows seemed to be affected by a ratchet phenomenon.


2013 ◽  
Vol 438-439 ◽  
pp. 1537-1541
Author(s):  
Lin Gang Tian ◽  
Bin Bin Zhen ◽  
Hu Huang ◽  
Jing Shen

This paper studies on the ultimate failure modes and bearing capacity of high intake tower under the action of seismic load based on nonlinear concrete model. By monitoring the way of crack development and failure process of the tower to study failure mode under the action of various seismic wave, we can conclud that the regional distributions of the structural crack of tower body vary with the duration of an earthquake. In the early period of earthquake, the crack has little effect on the whole structure. After duration of the earthquake, the structure forms penetrable cracks. By studying the cracks development and distribution on the structure of tower body under the action of various seismic waves, we know the failure process and failure mode of high intake tower. The conclusions provide evidence for engineering design and seismic analysis of pertinent engineering.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document