Response of secondary system under seismic waves induced by earthquake and underground blast loading

Abstract

For several decades, the Primary System (PS) has been the centre of focus for high intensity ground excitation, whereas the Secondary System (SS) in structures like nuclear reactor in nuclear power plants, equipments in laboratories, boilers, pipes, electrical and electronic equipments is little considered, which causes a heavy damage even for a low intensity earthquake. The ground excitation due to underground blast also causes the damage and its intensity depends on various factors like scaled distance, soil characteristics etc. An Analysis of the response of SS becomes necessary for a sensitive structure that holds SS. This paper deals with the acceleration of SS placed on different floors of a 5-storey building when subjected to ground shock due to earthquake and underground blast. The analysis was carried out using Empirical formulae for acceleration of shock waves by the underground blast and the response was obtained from MATLAB programming.