Fault Displacement Hazard Analysis Based on Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis for Specific Nuclear Sites

Abstract

Permanent ground displacements/deformations caused by earthquakes can seriously challenge the safety of the nuclear power plants. The state-of-the-art hazard analysis methods provide a fault displacement hazard curve, i.e., the annual probability of given measure of displacement will be exceeded. The evaluation of ground displacement hazard requires great effort, empirical evidence, and sufficient data for the characterization of the fault activity and capability to cause permanent surface displacement. There are practical cases when the fault at the site area revealed to be active, and, despite this, there are no sufficient data for the evaluation of permanent ground displacements hazard and for judging on the safety significance of permanent ground displacement. For these cases, a methodology is proposed that is based on the seismotectonic modelling and results of the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. The method provides conservative assessment of the annual probability of fault displacement that allows the decision whether permanent displacement hazard is relevant to nuclear power plant safety. The feasibility and applicability of the method is demonstrated for the Paks site, Hungary.

Keywords

• permanent ground displacement
• probabilistic seismic hazard assessment
• probabilistic fault displacement hazard assessment
• on-fault displacement
• distributed faulting
• nuclear safety