Seismic Qualification of Electrical Cabinet Using High-Fidelity Simulation under High Frequency Earthquakes

Most nuclear and nonnuclear power plants have been designed in the frequency range of 2 to 10 Hz, but now, the design guidelines for structural and nonstructural components such as electrical cabinets must be improved by including high frequency greater than 10 Hz for sustainable energy. The electrical cabinet is the essential piece of equipment for safety functions and the uncertainty of seismic capability in power plants. Consequently, the attention of this study focused on evaluating the seismic demands of the electrical cabinet under high frequency earthquakes and also, seismic qualification of the electrical cabinet using the identification of experimental tests and numerical models. An experimental test based on ICC-ES AC 156 and IEEE std.344 was conducted for seismic qualification of the cabinet and then, a high-fidelity finite element model to capture the significant deformation was developed in this study. It is observed that the fundamental frequencies were 16 and 24 Hz from the experimental tests, respectively. In order to verify the proposed high-fidelity simulation model, the target fundamental frequencies of the cabinet were evaluated in the ABAQUS platform. It was interesting to note that the reconciliation of experimental and analytical results was extremely identical. Furthermore, in order to evaluate seismic response characteristics of the cabinet subjected to high and low frequency earthquakes, time history analysis was conducted in this study, using the ABAQUS platform. As a result, the observation showed that the seismic response of the cabinet system under a high frequency earthquake was relatively higher than that of low frequency. It can be very important to note that the cabinet system was sensitive to high frequency vibration.