Analytical and experimental stiffness estimation of heat pipe supporter for nuclear power plant through a homogenization process

This article aims to study the in-plane stiffness estimation of heat pipe supporter (a large lattice structure) using experimental and numerical methods. The in-plane stiffness of heat pipe supporter for nuclear power plant is very important because of the safety against natural disasters, such as seismic load or tsunami, and has to be evaluated because it greatly affects the durability of the heat exchanger. However, the modeling process of the whole lattice structure for finite element analysis increases resources needed caused by too many nodes and elements. In this study, the mechanical properties of large lattice structures are determined by a unit cell finite element analysis. The mechanical behavior of a large lattice structure has been estimated by finite element analysis through a homogenization process for reducing analysis time and efforts. The finite element analysis results have been verified and show a good agreement with the experimental results.