New lumped-mass-stick model based on modal characteristics of structures: Development and application to a nuclear containment building

In this study, a new lumped-mass-stick model (LMSM) is developed based on the modal characteristics of a structure such as eigenvalues and eigenvectors. The simplified model, named the "frequency adaptive lumped-massstick model," hasonly a small number of stick elements and nodes to provide the same natural frequencies of the structure and is applied to a nuclear containment building. To investigate the numerical performance of the LMSM, a time history analysis is carried out on both the LMSM and the finite element model (FEM) for a nuclear containment building. A comparison of the results shows that the dynamic responses of the LMSM in terms of displacement and acceleration are almost identical to those of the FEM. In addition, the results in terms of fl oor response spectra at certain elevations are also in good agreement.