Hydraulic behaviour of a representative structural volume for containment buildings

For particular structures like containment buildings of nuclear power plants, the study of the hydraulic behaviour is of great concern. These structures are indeed the third barrier used to protect the environment in case of accidents. The evolution of the leaking rate through the porous medium is closely related to the changes in the permeability during the ageing process of the structure. It is thus essential to know the relation between concrete degradation and the transfer property when the consequences of a mechanical loading on the hydraulic behaviour have to be evaluated. A chained approach is designed for this purpose. The mechanical behaviour is described by an elastic plastic damage formulation, where damage is responsible for the softening evolution while plasticity accounts for the development of irreversible strains. The drying process is evaluated according to a non-linear equation of diffusion. From the knowledge of the damage and the degree of saturation, a relation is proposed to calculate the permeability of concrete. Finally, the non-homogeneous distribution of the hydraulic conductivity is included in the hydraulic problem which is in fact the association of the mass balance equation for gas phase and Darcy law. From this methodology, it is shown how an indicator for the hydraulic flows can be deduced. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.