Analysis of Rigging Lifting for AP1000 Containment Vessel Module by Finite Element Method

Containment vessel of AP1000 is built by modules, and the deformation and stress should be strictly limited when module is lifted. During the AP1000 project, the containment vessel module is lifted by lifting beam. A new lifting method called rigging lifting was proposed in this paper. The module lifting was modeled in ANSYS and analyzed by finite element method, the effect of lifting lug location and rigging number on deformation and stress was studied. The maximum deformation and maximum equivalent stress of two lifting methods was compared, and rigging lifting method was proved to be feasible. The rigging lifting method can reduce the maximum deformation and maximum equivalent stress of containment modules, improving the quality of containment vessel and reducing the construction cost.