Aircraft impact hazard for nuclear facilities - how certain are we?

Synopsis

Aircraft impact hazard often dictates the design of safety-critical civil structures of nuclear facilities. Overly conservative approaches could result in significant cost consequences, whereas underestimation could have potential safety implications. However, there are discrepancies amongst various stakeholders on how aircraft impact hazards are defined, as well as differences and uncertainties in the various parameters associated with aircraft impact hazard derivation.  

This evening lecture presents an overview of research commissioned by the Office for Nuclear Regulation and undertaken over a number of years by Mott MacDonald. The purpose of this research has been to investigate and more fully characterize the uncertainties associated with defining aircraft impact hazards informed by the use of aviation statistical analyses. Furthermore, the work has included the use of quantitative sensitivity analyses of some of the key parameters to ascertain where uncertainties could be significant. 

About the Speakers

Dr Ming Tan, with a PhD in the field of structural dynamics, he is the technical excellence lead for nuclear at Mott MacDonald responsible for driving the technical and innovation strategies in the nuclear sector within Mott MacDonald. 

Before that, Ming was the advanced analysis discipline lead, responsible for the direction and management of the advanced analysis team within the Mott MacDonald nuclear division. The team has a wide range of skills including complex finite element and explicit analyses such as aircraft impact and nonlinear advanced seismic soil-structure interaction analyses and designs. Ming has been working in the nuclear industry exclusively for over 20 years with the last 10 years focusing on nuclear new builds. Ming has had extensive experience in the generic design assessment process and understands the challenges faced by various technology vendors going through the process, especially when facing the UK non-prescribed regulatory expectation. Ming is the current elected committee for SECED in the last 7 years.  

Richard Fowler is an earthquake engineer working for the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) as a principal inspector - nuclear safety within the civil engineering and external hazards specialism. He has been with ONR since 2013 and has been working within the nuclear industry for over 20 years. He continues to lead the ONR assessment of seismic hazard work for new build projects and operating facilities and is also involved with generic design assessment.

Further information

This event is organised by SECED. The event will be chaired by Dr Barnali Ghosh (Mott MacDonald). Attendance at this meeting is free for members and non-members alike. 

In person attendance

The event will held in-person at the Institution of Civil Engineers (see map below). Prior registration is not required. Seats are allocated on a first come, first served basis.  We encourage everyone to attend in person if they can. 

Online attendance

This event will be broadcast online. Please register for the event prior to joining. The registration process will provide you with the link you need to join the main event.

Link here: https://www.ice.org.uk/events/latest-events/aircraft-impact-hazard-for-nuclear-facilities