An efficient numerical modeling approach for coupled electrical cabinets in nuclear power plants

Seismic quantification of nonstructural components like electrical cabinets is essential to ensure the uninterrupted operation of nuclear facilities during earthquake events. This process requires experimental tests, which can be expensive, time-consuming, and limited by safety concerns and precision. As an alternative to that, numerical simulations should be done in such a way that they are capable of capturing the global dynamic behavior with minimum computational efforts. However, in the case of complex interconnected cabinets, the simplification of numerical models often poses difficulties in illustrating the real-time behavior of combined cabinet systems. On the other hand, detailed three-dimensional (3D) numerical models require lengthy time and sophisticated computational setup, indicating their expensive computational efforts. To resolve this issue, a simplified and efficient 3D modeling approach has been proposed in this study. The accuracy of the results from the new model showed an excellent match with that obtained from the responses of the experimental test. After the validation and observation of the numerical efficiency, a practical application is implemented by considering the impacts of earthquake frequency contents on the behavior of cabinet systems. From the outcomes, it is evident that this proposed modeling methodology has the potential to replace the complex combined nuclear cabinet models for earthquake evaluation.