RESPONSE OF FLOOR MOUNTED EQUIPMENT

Abstract

The functioning of mechanical and other equipment during and after earthquakes may not only be necessary to avoid catastrophic consequences,such as in nuclear facilities,but also to guarantee the adequate functioning of emergency facilities (hospitals and fire stations,for example) that are necessary to cope with the aftermath of an earthquake. Many investigators have devoted their attention to the development of efficient and reliable methods for calculating the response of equipment critical to nuclear power plant safety. Typical of their numerous studies are those by Biggs and Roesset (Ref. 4) , Hadiian (Ref. 8) , Kapur and Shao (Ref. 13) ,Newmark (Ref. 7) , Singh (Ref. 14) , Villaverde - Lazo (Ref. 27 ) etc. Based on equipment parameters many codes also specify the method to find the response of equipment on a structure. In the present work a typical nuclear power station has been selected as the primary structure and comparison of response of several equipments , mounted on different floors , with varying masses and stiffnesses is made between an exact and approximate method. In the exact method the analysis has been carried out by considering in the analysis the equipment to be the part of structure itself.This method of analysis is known as coupled analysis.