Seismic hazard mitigation for nuclear power plant

The seismic safety of nuclear power plan(tNPP)has always been a major consideration in the site selection,design,operation,and more recently recertification of existing installations. In addition to the actual NPP and all their operational and safety related support systems,the storage of spent fuel in temporary or permanent storage facilities also poses a seismic risk. This seismic risk is typically assessed with state-of-the-art modeling and analytical tools that capture everything from the ground rupture or source of the earthquake to the site specific ground shaking,taking geotechnical parameters and soilfoundationstructureinteraction (SFSI) into account to the non-linear structural response of the reactor core,the containment structure,the core cooling system and the emergency cooling system(s),to support systems,piping systems and non-structural components,and finally the performance of spent fuel storage in the probabilistically determined operational basis earthquake (OBE) or the safe shutdown earthquake (SSE) scenario. The best and most meaningful validation and verification of these advanced analytical tools is in the form of full or very large scale experimental testing,designed and conducted in direct support of model and analysis tool calibration. This paper outlines the principles under which such calibration testing should be conducted and illustrates with examples the kind of testing and parameter evaluation required.