Efficient computational structural reliability analysis of concrete containments

This paper presents probabilistic analysis of structural capacity of pre-stressed concrete containments subjected to internal pressure using the Advanced Line Sampling Method (an efficient advanced Monte Carlo simulation technique, which gives more accurate results than FORM). This task is an important part of level 2 probabilistic safety analysis in the nuclear industry, particularly when a reactor is undergoing design assessment. We compare our calculation with experimental results from two international round robin test exercises (Sandia National Laboratories and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) and calculations using FORM, which are available in the literature. Since the ultimate structural collapse mode of the structures has already been established, we simply attempt to probabilistically determine the failure pressure of the containment. Our results show close agreement with previous calculations and demonstrate that structural engineers who are not specialists in risk engineering can obtain accurate probabilistic analyses of their models using freely available software.