A simplified calculation method and algorithm for mechanical responses of nuclear containment

To address the time-consuming and costly problems associated with the analysis methods primarily adopted at present (experimental test and numerical simulation), a simplified calculation method and algorithm are proposed. According to the theoretical solution of the thin-walled cylinder under inner pressure, the relationship between stress and strain is analyzed theoretically and the formula for calculating the mechanical response of the containment is derived and established with consideration of the material properties of containment's each component. Finally, the corresponding software, named as NCMC, is proposed. Three different containment types are selected for verification and these cases provide both numerical data and measured data. The comparison results demonstrate that NCMC can have good accuracy with exceptionally high computational efficiency, as well as it is highly flexible and has a significantly wider application scenario. NCMC is put forward to provide a relatively simplified method compared with traditional finite element (FE) software. This simplified calculation algorithm requires only a few seconds to a few minutes to obtain mechanical response results, which has significant advantages as FE software takes days to finish the same analysis. Hence, NCMC can have a promising application.