Seismic Qualification of In-Cell Crane Employed in the Hot Cell of a Radio Chemical Plant

Abstract

In nuclear industry, due to the presence of highly acidic and radioactive environment, all the handling and transferring operations of various systems and its components inside the hot cell are to be carried out remotely. For this remote handling operations, the in-cell crane is developed. During normal operation and under postulated seismic event, the structural integrity of the in-cell crane has to be maintained. Hence, as per the safety requirement, this system has to be seismically qualified. This paper highlights the finite element modelling of the in-cell crane for two different load configurations, load cases such as static and seismic; extraction of natural frequencies and mode shapes; mode combination using CQC (Complete Quadratic Combination) method. The seismic qualification of in-cell crane is done as per ASME Section III, Division 1, Subsection NF and its structural integrity is ensured.