Fragility of a Flood Defense Structure Subjected to Multi-Hazard Scenario

Abstract

The March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster has highlighted the significance of maintaining the integrity of flood protection systems in the vicinity of a nuclear power plant. In the US, Oyster Creek nuclear plant was shut down when high storm surge during hurricane Sandy threatened its water intake and circulation systems. A gravity dam located upstream of a power plant can undergo seismic failure or flooding failure leading to flooding at the nuclear plant. In this paper, we present the results from a study on evaluating the fragilities for failure of a concrete gravity dam under both the flooding and the seismic events. Finite element analysis is used for modeling the seismic behavior as well as the seepage through foundation. A time-dependent analysis is considered to account for appropriate nonlinearities. Failure of dam foundation is characterized by rupture, and the failure of dam body is characterized by excessive deformation for the flooding and seismic loads respectively. The study presented in this paper has focused on a concrete gravity dam because of the need of validation of models which exist in prior studies only for concrete gravity dams. However, the concepts are directly applicable to any concrete flood defense structure.