Buckling Analysis of Circular Shells for RDE Reactor Pressure Vessel by Finite Element Study and Analytical Model

Sari

One of the basic design considerations for circular shells of Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) components of Reaktor Daya Eksperimental (RDE) is buckling mode shape of geometric structure imperfections. Geometric structure is prone to a large number of imperfections due to the manufacturing difficulties. Moreover, determination of critical loads of circular shell structure can be properly approximated only through randomness in the geometry. As at the basic design phase this is possible and expensive to measure the geometric structure imperfections in situ or in laboratory, a simulation of computer code should be provided. In this paper, a contribution is made to numerical simulation by finite element study and analytical model by Monte Carlo technique approach of such circular shells for RPV components. For this reason, computer code SolidWorks is used in the implementation finite element analysis and Fortran code is developed for analytical model analysis. The main objective of this investigation is to provide a comprehensive analysis of unstable structure due to the buckled geometric imperfection in the design calculations involved. A method of solution attempts to use the linearized equilibrium equations to interpret geometric imperfections as structure of circular shells associated with the RPV components of RDE. A number of calculation results carried out on a computer code are presented to illustrate the design of RPV components that are safe from the buckled shape failure. It is found that both of the computer code results are very similar with greatest difference value of vibrational amplitude of 0.00699 % and smallest value for buckling load factor of 12.51 on upper circular shell under 750 C conditions.