Abstract: Assessment of the residual strength of reinforced concrete buildings subjected to fire is a problem that requires fast and sufficiently reliable resolution, necessary for the action of firefighters, forensic fire investigation, and structural assessment of post-fire condition of the building to take place. In all cases safety and integrity of firefighters and researchers can be at risk, and it is necessary to have rapidly and sufficiently reliable information in order to choose whether to enter freely, to enter with caution, or simply do not enter to the burned structure. This required prompt assessment gives no time or background to develop mathematical models of the structure and damage propagation. This work presents an experimental methodology for a fast assessment of post-fire residual strength of reinforced concrete frame buildings based on the high correlation between the loss of strength and non-destructive test results of frame concrete elements subjected to fire action. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Abstract: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving energy production sustainability is a paramount of Chile's 2050 energy policy. This though, is difficult to achieve without some degree of nuclear power involvement, given that the geography of the country consists of many areas that are practically off-grid, whereas cannot be developed and financially exploited due to the lack of basic commodities such as water and electricity. Recently small modular reactors (SMRs) have gained lots of attention by both researchers and world policy makers for their promised capabilities of enhanced safety systems, affordable costs and competitive scalability. SMRs can be located in remote areas and at this time are being actively developed in Argentina, USA, Brazil, Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, India and South Africa. Chile's 2010 earthquake and Fukushima's 2011 nuclear disaster have increased significantly both the population's fear and opposition to Nuclear Power Energy for the possible consequences of radiation on the lives of people. This paper aims to study the seismic resistance of a typical nuclear structure, being at time proposed in Small Modular Reactors, by using earthquake conditions typically seen in Chile. Since many designs are under study, a NuScale reactor from USA is analyzed under these extreme loading conditions. The major advantages of the NuScale reactor are in the power scalability (it can go from 1 to 12 reactor cores producing from 60 to 720 MWe), limited nuclear fuel concentration, modules allocated below grade and high strength steel containments fully immersed in water. The cooling effect beyond Design Basis Accident is ensured indefinitely, which induces a significant safety factor in the case of an accident. For the purpose of this study a detailed 3D detailed structural model was developed, reproducing the NuScale reactor's reinforced concrete framing system, where nonlinear analyses was performed to assess the overall mechanical response of the structure. The framing system has been tested under high seismic excitations typically seen in Chile (Mw > 8.0), showing high resistance and capability to cope with the developed forces due to its design. Based on a Soil-Structure Interaction analysis, it was also found that the NuScale framing system manages to maintain a low-stress level at the interaction surface between the foundation and the soil, where the structural system was found to be able to withstand significant earthquake loads. Finally, further investigation is deemed necessary in order to study the potential damages of the structure in the case of other hazards such as tsunami events, blast loads, etc.

Abstract: Global buckling of slender walls, reported only in a few laboratory tests before 2010, became a critical issue in design of reinforced concrete buildings after it was observed following the 2010 Mw 8.8 Chile earthquake and the 2011 Mw 6.3 New Zealand earthquake. Researchers have proposed theoretical buckling models based on prismatic columns subjected to uniform tension/compression cycles, where the key parameters are slenderness ratio, number of curtains of reinforcement, and maximum tensile strain before buckling during load reversal. These models have shown sufficient accuracy in comparison with laboratory tests on columns under such loading conditions. However, buckling in walls is more complex because of variation of strains through the wall depth and variation of moment along the wall height. Nonlinear finite elements are used to evaluate the effects of these more complex loadings on buckling of wall boundary elements. Analyses showed that the maximum tensile strain (averaged over the wall out-of-plane unsupported height) required to buckle the wall during load reversal does not depend on the moment variation along the wall height. Moreover, for typical wall lengths, the wall boundary behaves like an isolated column subjected to axial force cycles, with minimal apparent bracing provided by the wall web. This allows to analyze a broad range of practical cases for buckling susceptibility using simplified approaches based on buckling models of axially loaded columns.