Vol. 53 No. 4 (2016)   New Products & Technologies
Technical Papers

Development of Free-standing Rack Seismic Evaluation Method

AKIHISA IWASAKI
YOSHITSUGU NEKOMOTO
HIDEYUKI MORITA
JUNICHI KISHIMOTO
KATSUHIKO TANIGUCHI
YU TAKAKI

The spent fuel taken out of a reactor in a nuclear power plant is temporarily stored in a spent fuel rack until it is carried out to an intermediate storage facility or a reprocessing facility. The spent fuel rack requires high earthquake resistance. The free-standing rack has no supporting members around it and disperses seismic energy with friction by sliding, and the water around the rack reduces the response. Therefore, it can be expected to provide high earthquake resistance. In consideration of three-dimensional behavior, collisions and fluid-structure interaction accompanied by sliding and rocking during a large excitation, the seismic evaluation method for the free-standing rack was established, and its validity was confirmed through a comparison with the results of the full-scale excitation test conducted at E-Defense. In this report, the seismic evaluation method for the free-standing rack is described.