6-Inch diameter pipe system seismic fragility test

The objective of the ETEC tests was to investigate the ability of the piping system to withstand high level dynamic seismic and other loadings by: (1) testing the piping system to failure under dynamic loads; (2) characterizing the high level dynamic response; (3) identifying the failure mode; and (4) providing a benchmark test for quantifying the analytical conservatism for (a) current design criteria, (b) failure predictions based on several emerging nonlinear piping response analysis methods, and (c) probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) methods for piping systems. This paper contains the test results and assessments of the test performed on the 6-in. diameter piping system.