A Method for Seismic Qualification of Cable Tray Systems in Nuclear Power Plants

This paper presents an approach to seismically qualify cable tray systems in nuclear power plants. The approach allows the use of standard tray and support designs by giving realistic consideration to the inherent load carrying capabilities of the cable tray. Tray load-deflection curves are used to formulate a simplified analytical model of the tray which then is coupled to the analytical model of the supports. Application of the Amplified Response Spectra methods to parametric analysis of the resulting overall model allows the designer to optimize the support spacing and the tray sizing while complying with the tray-support system functional requirement.