STRUCTURAL HEALTH MONITORING FOR EXTERNAL RC NUCLEAR CONTAINMENT USING VARIOUS SETUP OF INNER ELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY MEASUREMENTS

Abstract

Maintaining the integrity of nuclear power plant structures is critical for protecting the external environment. External reinforced concrete (RC) containment for the nuclear power plant is subjected to extreme airplane load. This research aims to monitor the cracks generated inside the wall of the external RC containment due to the impact of airplanes using embedded sensors located inside the core of the RC containment. This article simulates the reinforced concrete containment wall and the dome using ANSYS®. The wall is subjected to the impact of a Boeing 747-200C airplane at 30m height. The RC containment response was studied, and a proposed health monitoring technique was applied using embedded sensors to measure real-time electrical resistivity variations. An experimental study was conducted on different specimens that were made of heavyweight concrete. Cracks with different lengths were included inside the cracked specimens. The cracks are simulated inside laboratory specimens using failure criteria of concrete. The percentage change in inner electrical resistivity at different setups of measurements was deduced between the uncracked and different cracked specimens to measure the variations in electrical resistivity. Finally, the decimal logarithm resistivity anisotropy parameter at different measurement setups indicates the crack's presence and its direction inside the cracked specimens.