Use of an unconventional technique for seismic qualification of equipments

Abstract

There is a great deal of equipment in nuclear power stations which is required to withstand predefined levels of earthquakes. Such equipment is generally qualified analytically or experimentally by shake-table tests. However, some equipment is so complicated that an analytical simulation is very difficult. This equipment could also be so large and heavy physically that shake-table testing may not be possible in many cases. One typical example of such equipment is the Diesel Generator (DG) sets of Nuclear Power Plants (NPP's). For functional qualification of such equipment, the use of railway track unevenness to induce stationary random vibrations is being put forward as an economical and conservative alternative. This article also brings out the feasibility of using such a technique for all difficult to model and/or test equipment both in a passive and an active state.