Overview of Programs at Sandia National Laboratories

by Walter A. von Riesemann, Sandia Natl Lab, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Structural Design, Analysis and Testing

Abstract:

This paper presents on overview of the containment integrity programs at Sandia National Laboratories. Companion papers at this conference give greater details about the construction, testing, and analysis of the 1?6-scale reinforced concrete model. Additional details on the entire program are given in the listed references. The tests of the two large-scale models did not prove or disprove that leakage occurs before a break, or vice versa. Also, the tests did not establish margins of safety. The did provide extremely useful information to benchmark different evaluation methods and gave valuable information on the behavior of containments. The program's primary objective is to validate computational, analytical, and empirical methods that can be used to predict the performance of containment systems when they are subjected to severe accidents. Experimental data should not be extrapolated to prototypical designs without exercising extreme care. Each containment system is different, and each should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Subject Headings: Steel structures | Reinforced concrete | Structural design | Structural reliability | Dynamic structural analysis | Structural models | Steel construction | United States

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