Aircraft impact analysis of nuclear safety-related concrete structures: A review

Safety-related nuclear structures, including concrete nuclear containment vessels, constructed before September 11, 2001, were not purposely designed to resist any impact loading greater than a light aircraft crash. Since 2001, safety of nuclear facilities against a deliberate or accidental large civilian aircraft impact has drawn much attention worldwide. However, current design guides for nuclear structures provide limited information on analysis methodologies for such aircraft impact. This document presents basic general knowledge required to analyze concrete structures for an aircraft impact and provides a summary of available numerical and experimental investigations that may be used to benchmark an aircraft impact simulation. The methodologies available for an aircraft impact analysis are overviewed with an emphasis on structural damage analysis. Constitutive models used for concrete, reinforcing steel, and composite materials are addressed in this paper.