Seismic Response Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Structures and Equipment due to the Pohang Earthquake

Abstract

The probabilistic seismic safety assessment is one of the methodology to evaluate the seismic safety of the nuclear power plants. The site characteristics of the nuclear power plant should be reflected when evaluating the seismic safety of the nuclear power plant. The Korea seismic characteristics are strong in high frequency region and may be different from NRC Regulatory Guide 1.60, which is the design spectrum of nuclear power plants. In this study, seismic response of a nuclear power plant structure by Pohang earthquake (2017.11.15. (KST)) is investigated. The Pohang earthquake measured at the Cheongsong seismic observation station (CHS) is scaled to the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.2 g and the seismic acceleration time history curve corresponding to the design spectrum is created. A nuclear power plant of the containment building and the auxiliary buildings are modeled using OPENSEES to analyze the seismic response of the Pohang earthquake. The seismic behavior of the nuclear power plant due to the Pohang earthquake is investigated. And the seismic performances of the equipment of a nuclear power plant are evaluated by the HCLPF. As a result, the seismic safety evaluation of nuclear power plants should be evaluated based on site-specific characteristics of nuclear power plants.