is a structural engineer broadly focused on seismic design of critical facilities. Her doctorate research at UC Berkeley investigated the applicability of seismic isolation and supplemental viscous damping to nuclear power plants with focus on seismic resilience and safety. The work identified isolation parameters for the optimization of design to produce high performance levels of both structural response and secondary systems. After receiving her PhD, Dr. Wong began a post-doctoral fellowship at Lawrence National Laboratory focusing on developing a modern computational framework for the nonlinear seismic analysis of Department of Energy nuclear facilities and systems. This work seeks to expand the understanding of soil structure interaction for these structures and the means of modeling this behavior both theoretically and experimentally. In addition to her research experience, Dr. Wong also has worked for the public and private engineering sectors in the areas of water infrastructure, transportation, data systems, and project management. She joined San Francisco State University in 2014 as lecturer and is currently an assistant professor of Civil Engineering in the School of Engineering. Her research interests focus on the application of seismic technology for critical facilities and engineering education. She is a member of ASCE, EERI, SEAONC, CAIES, and SWE.
Fragility curves are the primary way of assessing seismic risk for a building with numerous studies focused on deriving these fragility curves and how to account for the inherent uncertainty in the seismic assessment. This study focuses on a three-story steel moment frame structure and performs a fragility assessment of the building using a new approach called SPO2FRAG (Static Pushover to Fragility) that is based on pushover analysis. This new approach is further compared and contrasted against traditional nonlinear dynamic analysis approaches like Incremental Dynamic Analysis and Multiple Stripe Analysis. The sensitivity of the resulting fragility curves is studied against multiple parameters including uncertainties in ground motion, the type of analysis method used and the choice of curve fitting technique. All these factors influence the fragility curve behavior and this study assesses the impact of changing these parameters.
While seismic isolation is one of the principal approaches used to mitigate the risks associated with earthquake ground shaking, it has found only limited application in the construction of nuclear power plants (NPPs). As a new application, it is necessary to understand how the overall process works and figure out potential difficulties in all stages of managing isolated NPPs. Several manufacturers, experts, and representatives from engineering firms were contacted and interviewed to better understand potential difficulties in the application of seismic isolation to NPPs. In addition to this firsthand knowledge, studies and research conducted in the area of radiation exposure and the area of general durability are reviewed. According to these materials, this paper summarizes some issues related to the durability of the isolators, radiation, and other environmental effects on devices and raises some understanding and special issues in the planning, design, analysis, procurement, installation, operations, and maintenance stages of managing a seismically isolated NPP. These topics are expected to provide a certain guiding significance on future application of seismic isolation for NPPs.
The main focus of this paper was to examine some of the principal advantages and disadvantages cited for the application of seismic isolation to nuclear power facilities. This discussion is followed by an examination of the potential relative impacts on cost and schedule of a conventional fixed‐base design approach vs one based on seismic isolation. This examination considers issues associated with planning, design, operation, and decommission. Some of the challenges related to design and maintenance (during normal operations and following a significant earthquake) are then discussed, and specific research and development topics are identified that are necessary to allow seismic isolation to be pursued with confidence. Finally, overall conclusions and recommendations are offered.
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