Seismic risk assessment for the CEUS nuclear power plant fleet based on the NGA-East ground motion model

Abstract

Knowledge of seismic hazard at engineered facilities evolves with the growth in related technical fields. This presents challenges to stability and decision-making concerning safety that require effective assessment tools. Updated mean hazard estimates were developed at nuclear power plant (NPP) sites in Central and Eastern United States (CEUS) using the Next Generation Attenuation (NGA)-East ground motion model (GMM) and the latest available site amplification data. These estimates indicated that seismic hazard increases at several CEUS NPP sites, especially for spectral frequencies below 5 Hz. To assess the safety implications, updated mean seismic core damage frequency (SCDF) estimates were developed for the CEUS NPP fleet using the updated mean hazard estimates and updated plant-level fragilities (PLFs). The PLFs were developed from plant-specific information compiled by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) and recent seismic probabilistic risk assessments (SPRAs) completed by some NPPs. The SCDF quantification followed a method defined by the USNRC to combine risk contributions from different spectral frequencies. While not intended to provide a precise quantification of risk, such as that provided by a full SPRA, when the results are compared against other estimates using the same approach, this process provides valuable insight into the overall change in risk as the understanding of hazard changes. The assessment indicated no significant change in estimated risk for the majority of the CEUS fleet compared to the 2010 USNRC estimates—about 90% of the fleet risk distribution was lower, equal, or slightly higher. A few NPPs had SCDF estimates significantly larger than the 2010 estimates. The SCDF increases at these few NPPs have larger contributions from updated PLFs than updated hazard estimates. The majority of these NPPs have recently completed detailed SPRAs and have tools to develop more accurate estimates of the updated risk than can be achieved in this fleet-level study.