A Comparative Study of Seismic Performances of Plant Facilities Complying With Seismic Design Codes of the Countries of Southeast Asia

Abstract eng:
On March 11, 2011, several refineries and chemical plants (hereafter referred to as “plant facilities”) in eastern Japan suffered serious damages due to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. After investigations and studies on the damages inflicted to the plant facilities, design methods for earthquake-resistant plants have been reconfirmed and improved. In addition, seismic diagnosis and reinforcements have been carried out on existing plant facilities that were unaffected by the disaster to be prepared for the potential seismic event of the Nankai Trough mega-earthquake, that is predicted to occur in the near future. The valuable lessons learnt from these disasters are important for future studies in earthquake-prone countries of southeast Asia. In these regions, as there are old existing plant facilities as well as new ones being built, these countries are expected to make the best use of these experiences from Japan and transfer improved seismic design technology in line with their design codes and practices. Based on the above background, a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) survey project study was carried out in 2012 to investigate whether Japanese seismic technologies could be introduced in Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines appropriately and whether these technologies can improve the safety of earthquake-resistant plants and meet the new requirements In this study, by summarizing the results of the survey, required seismic performances of the plant facilities in accordance with the seismic design codes of the three countries, and Japan are compared. Moreover, by conducting a trial design, the shell thicknesses of a typical tower designed by adhering to each seismic design code are presented for evaluation. From the outcome of this study, the differences in the required seismic performances of the three countries and Japan are validated, and certain design margins of the actual plant facilities when applying the Japanese code are noted. Furthermore, two other papers that highlight this design margin are introduced. In one of the papers—“Report of Investigation Study on Evaluation of Seismic Reinforcement for High Pressure Gas Facilities” of 2015—evaluation results of the margins of a tower designed in conformity with Japanese seismic design codes are reported using static elastoplastic analysis of finite element method models. In addition, the authors’ paper—“A Study on Optimization of Seismic Strengthening for the Plant Facilities in terms of Plant Management”—examined the sensitivity of development of seismic damage concerning each damage modes of the tower and the foundation in case that seismic loads exceed the (code specified)seismic design load. The approach referred in the two papers can be applicable to the three countries for which seismic design codes are investigated and evaluated through the trial design in the first part, and it would provide similar results on the design margin and damage modes’ sensitivity to large-earthquake.

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