Considering the non-linear behavior of structure and soil when evaluating a nuclear power plant's seismic safety under a beyond-design basis earthquake is essential. In order to obtain the nonlinear response of a nuclear power plant structure, a time-domain SSI analysis method that considers the nonlinearity of soil and structure and the nonlinear Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) effect is necessary. The Boundary Reaction Method (BRM) is a time-domain SSI analysis method. The BRM can be applied effectively with a Perfectly Matched Layer (PML), which is an effective energy absorbing boundary condition. The BRM has a characteristic that the magnitude of the response in far-field soil increases as the boundary interface of the effective seismic load moves outward. In addition, the PML has poor absorption performance of low-frequency waves. For this reason, the accuracy of the low-frequency response may be degraded when analyzing the combination of the BRM and the PML. In this study, the accuracy of the analysis response was improved by adjusting the PML input parameters to improve this problem. The accuracy of the response was evaluated by using the analysis response using KIESSI-3D, a frequency domain SSI analysis program, as a reference solution. As a result of the analysis applying the optimal PML parameter, the average error rate of the acceleration response spectrum for 9 degrees of freedom of the structure was 3.40%, which was highly similar to the reference result. In addition, time-domain nonlinear SSI analysis was performed with the soil's nonlinearity to show this study's applicability. As a result of nonlinear SSI analysis, plastic deformation was concentrated in the soil around the foundation. The analysis results found that the analysis method combining BRM and PML can be effectively applied to the seismic response analysis of nuclear power plant structures.

This paper presents a detailed procedure for a nonlinear soil-structure interaction of a seismically isolated NPP(Nuclear Power Plant) structure using the boundary reaction method (BRM). The BRM offers a two-step method as follows: (1) the calculation of boundary reaction forces in the frequency domain on an interface of linear and nonlinear regions, (2) solving the wave radiation problem subjected to the boundary reaction forces in the time domain. For the purpose of calculating the boundary reaction forces at the base of the isolator, the KIESSI-3D program is employed in this study to solve soil-foundation interaction problem subjected to vertically incident seismic waves. Wave radiation analysis is also employed, in which the nonlinear structure and the linear soil region are modeled by finite elements and energy absorbing elements on the outer model boundary using a general purpose nonlinear FE program. In this study, the MIDAS/Civil program is employed for modeling the wave radiation problem. In order to absorb the outgoing elastic waves to the unbounded soil region, spring and viscous-damper elements are used at the outer FE boundary. The BRM technique utilizing KIESSI-3D and MIDAS/Civil programs is verified using a linear soil-structure analysis problem. Finally the method is applied to nonlinear seismic analysis of a base-isolated NPP structure. The results show that BRM can effectively be applied to nonlinear soil-structure interaction problems.

이 논문에서는 경계반력법을 이용한 비선형 지반-구조물 상호작용 해석을 위해 LS-DYNA나 MIDAS/Civil 등의 유한요소해석 프로그램과 연계하는 방법을 제시하였다. 경계반력법 적용시 유한요소프로그램에서 구조물과 지반은 선형 또는 비선형 유한요소를 이용하여 모델링하였다. 유한요소의 해석모델 외부의 무한영역으로 전달되는 탄성파를 최대한 흡수하기위해 유한요소 모델의 외측에 LS-DYNA의 경우에는 PML(Perfectly Matched Layer) 요소를, MIDAS/Civil의 경우에는 점성감쇠-스프링 요소를 적용하였다. 비선형 유한요소는 구조물영역에만 적용되는 것으로 가정하였다. 이 연구에서는 입사지진파에 의한 경계반력은 KIESSI-3D 프로그램을 이용하여 계산하였다. 선형 지반-구조물 상호작용 문제에 대해 일반적인 KIESSI-3D의 해석결과와 BRM해석결과를 비교하여 제시된 방법의 효율성을 제시하였다. 또한 수치적 비교를 통해 비선형 구조에 대해 보수적인 응답을 보이는 선형 SSI문제에 대하여 얻은 경계반력이 비선형 지반-구조물 상호작용해석에 효과적으로 적용 가능함을 알 수 있었다.