Design of the Wire Rope Type Snubber for Earthquake and Vibration of Piping System

Wire Rope형 배관 지진$\cdot$진동완충기의 설계

The piping system of a power plant suffers not only thermal expansion according to the temperature variation, but also many kinds of load: steady state vibrations due to the equipment operation or fluid flow, and transient vibrations due to the earthquake or explosion, etc. The snubbers are usually installed on the piping system to allow thermal expansion, and to reduce dynamic responses. Most snubbers are kinds of hydraulic and mechanical type, which can be degraded by leakage and abrasion, and required much cost for maintenance and replacement. Recently the wire rope type snubbers are developed and applied to the power plant, and proved as effective to reduce piping system vibration. Wire rope type snubber uses the bending rigidity and energy dissipation properties of ropes. This paper presents the procedure of design, and the method to apply hysteresis curve to the dynamic response analysis. Experiments were also conducted to confirm design results.