Need for Maintaining Structural Integrity

• Containment structures of nuclear power plants serve as the final barrier to prevent the release of radioactive materials.
• Investigation and management of structural integrity of concrete containments are critical to ensuring public safety.

Shortcomings in Previous Works and Research Direction

• In the current framework, allowable strain limits have been used as failure criterion, and actual leakage behavior has only been considered indirectly.
• In addition, the current framework does not address how to incorporate uncertainties in input parameters that may affect structural capacity.
• To overcome this limitations, actual leakage behavior will be evaluated by estimating number and width of cracks based on the stresses and strains of concrete and liner plates.
• Furthermore, uncertainties in various input parameters will be incorporated in pressure fragility analysis and leakage estimation to identify dominant parameters affecting pressure capacity.