Limit state domain of high damping rubber bearings in seismic isolated nuclear power plants

The paper describes the work performed at Politecnico di Milano in the field of seismic isolation of nuclear power plants buildings. Within this activity, the development of reliable and efficient FE models in ANSYS® has been pursued along with the definition of a limit state domain for first damage in High Damping Rubber Bearing (HDRB) devices. The paper is settled into a wider procedure aiming at providing a reliable, effective and robust method to evaluate the seismic fragility of base isolated nuclear power plants.