Soft impact testing of a wall-floor-wall reinforced concrete structure

Assessing the safety of the reactor building of a nuclear power plant against the crash of an airplane calls for valid computational tools such as finite element models and material constitutive models. Validation of such tools and models in turn calls for reliable and relevant experimental data. The problem is that such data is scarcely available. One of the aspects of such a crash is vibrations that are generated by the impact. These vibrations tend to propagate from the impact point to the internal parts of the building. If strong enough, these vibrations may cause malfunction of the safety-critical equipment inside the building. To enable validation of computational models for this type of behaviour, we have conducted a series of three tests with a wall-floor-wall reinforced concrete structure under soft impact loading. The response of the structure was measured with accelerometers, displacement sensors and strain gauges. In addition to impact tests, the structure was subjected to modal tests under different conditions. The tests yielded a wealth of useful data for validation of computational models and better understanding about shock induced vibration physics especially in reinforced concrete structures.