SRS BEDROCK PROBABILISTIC SEISMIC HAZARD ANALYSIS (PSHA) DESIGN BASIS JUSTIFICATION (U)

Abstract

This represents an assessment of the available Savannah River Site (SRS) hard-rock probabilistic seismic hazard assessments (PSHAs), including PSHAs recently completed, for incorporation in the SRS seismic hazard update. The prior assessment of the SRS seismic design basis (WSRC, 1997) incorporated the results from two PSHAs that were published in 1988 and 1993. Because of the vintage of these studies, an assessment is necessary to establish the value of these PSHAs considering more recently collected data affecting seismic hazards and the availability of more recent PSHAs. This task is consistent with the Department of Energy (DOE) order, DOE O 420.1B and DOE guidance document DOE G 420.1-2. Following DOE guidance, the National Map Hazard was reviewed and incorporated in this assessment. In addition to the National Map hazard, alternative ground motion attenuation models (GMAMs) are used with the National Map source model to produce alternate hazard assessments for the SRS. These hazard assessments are the basis for the updated hard-rock hazard recommendation made in this report. The development and comparison of hazard based on the National Map models and PSHAs completed using alternate GMAMs provides increased confidence in this hazard recommendation. The alternate GMAMs are the EPRI (2004), USGS (2002) and a regional specific model (Silva et al., 2004). Weights of 0.6, 0.3 and 0.1 are recommended for EPRI (2004), USGS (2002) and Silva et al. (2004) respectively. This weighting gives cluster weights of .39, .29, .15, .17 for the 1-corner, 2-corner, hybrid, and Greens-function models, respectively. This assessment is judged to be conservative as compared to WSRC (1997) and incorporates the range of prevailing expert opinion pertinent to the development of seismic hazard at the SRS. The corresponding SRS hard-rock uniform hazard spectra are greater than the design spectra developed in WSRC (1997) that were based on the LLNL (1993) and EPRI (1988) PSHAs. The primary reasons for this difference is the greater activity rate used in contemporary models for the Charleston source zone and proper incorporation of uncertainty and randomness in GMAMs.