K. Coppersmith

Coppersmith Consulting, Inc.

A key decision for nuclear facilities is evaluating the need for an update of an existing seismic hazard analysis in light of new data and information that has become available since the time that analysis was completed. We introduce the newly developed risk-informed Seismic Hazard Periodic Reevaluation Methodology (referred to as the SHPRM) and pr...

Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities must comply with DOE Order 420.1C Facility Safety, which requires that all such facilities review their natural phenomena hazards (NPH) assessments no less frequently than every ten years. The Order points the reader to Standard DOE-STD-1020-2012. In addition to providing a discussion of the applicable...

Knowledge and understanding of natural hazards is continually evolving. As a result, there is a need to reexamine the safety of nuclear facilities in the light of new knowledge and reassess the adequacy of original design bases. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities must comply with DOE Order 420.1C Facility Safety, which requires that faci...

A probabilistic seismic hazard analysis has been conducted for a potential nuclear power plant site on the coast of South Africa, a country of low-to-moderate seismicity. The hazard study was conducted as a SSHAC Level 3 process, the first application of this approach outside North America. Extensive geological investigations identified five fault...

Seismic risk analysis for nuclear facilities requires probabilistic characterization of both the earthquake loading and the fragility of structures, systems and components, including consideration of the important contributors to uncertainty. The seismic hazard is determined through a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA), which requires dem...

Quantification of uncertainties is an essential component of probabilistic seismic and volcanic hazard assessments. Formal expert assessment is a structured and documented process for identifying and quantifying uncertainties. Expert judgment is used in any technical assessment, but often is implicit and undocumented. Formal expert assessment expli...

Under the direction of National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (NAGRA), a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis was conducted for the Swiss nuclear power plant sites. The study has become known under the name “PEGASOS Project.” This is the first of a group of papers in this volume that describes the seismic source characterizatio...

An expert elicitation completed in 1996 estimated the frequency of intersection by a dike of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain. That assessment resulted in a mean annual frequency of intersection of 1.7e -8, or about 1 chance in 60 million per year. The expert panel primarily considered the past 5 million years...

Probabilistic seismic hazard analyses provide the opportunity, indeed the requirement, to quantify the uncertainties in important inputs to the analysis. The locations of future earthquakes, their recurrence rates and maximum size, and the ground motions that will result at a site of interest are all quantities that require careful consideration be...

The PEGASOS project was a major international seismic hazard study, one of the largest ever conducted anywhere in the world, to assess seismic hazard at four nuclear power plant sites in Switzerland. Before the report of this project has become publicly available, a paper attacking both methodology and results has appeared. Since the general scient...

A probabilistic volcanic hazard analysis (PVHA) was conducted in 1996 for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Based on data gathered by the Yucca Mountain Project over the course of about 15 years, the analysis integrated the judgments of a panel of ten volcanic experts using methods of formal expert elicitation. PVHA resulted in a p...

Probabilistic hazard analyses, which have been successfully used to evaluate various geohazards in both onshore and offshore environments, provide results that feed directly into project risk analyses. Evolving regulatory environments likely will incorporate more probabilistic and risk-based analyses in the future and this paper describes some of t...

Earthquake ground motions have been assessed using a probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) of the proposed repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive wastes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. To meet the applicable regulations, consideration must be given to ground motions that have probabilities of exceedance as low as 10{sup -8}/...

We present a methodology for conducting a site-specific probabilistic analysis of fault displacement hazard. Two approaches are outlined. The first relates the occurrence of fault displacement at or near the ground surface to the occurrence of earthquakes in the same manner as is done in a standard probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) for g...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is considering the possible recommendation of a site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for the potential development of a geologic repository for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. To facilitate public review and comment, in May 2001 the DOE released the Yucca Mountain Science and Engin...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is considering the possible recommendation of a site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for the potential development of a geologic repository for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. To facilitate public review and comment, in May 2001 the DOE released the Yucca Mountain Science and Engin...

Probabilistic seismic hazard analyses were conducted to estimate both ground motion and fault displacement hazards at the potential geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The study is believed to be the largest and most comprehensive analyses ever conducted for ground-shaking hazard an...

We present a summary of the methodology for probabilistic fault displacement hazard and discuss the types of data needed for the analysis. The methodology is based on the widely used formulation for probabilistic assessment of ground shaking hazard. We distinguish between principal faulting, ruptures occurring on the fault producing the earthquake,...

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) is a methodology that estimates the likelihood that various levels of earthquake-caused ground motions will be exceeded at a given location in a given future time period. Due to large uncertainties in all of the geosciences data and in their modeling, multiple model interpretations are often possible. Th...

Source parameters for historical earthquakes worldwide are compiled to develop a series of empirical relationships among moment magnitude (M), surface rupture length, subsurface rupture length, downdip rupture width, rupture area, and maximum and average displacement per event. The resulting data base is a significant update of previous compilation...

This report summarizes the results of the Earthquakes and Tectonics Expert Judgement Excitation Project sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The objectives of this study were two-fold: (1) to demonstrate methods for the excitation of expert judgement, and (2) to quantify the uncertainties associated with earthquake and tectoni...

This study develops a methodology for making decisions involving complex earth science systems and demonstrates its feasibility in relation to issues of radioactive waste storage at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The basic approach involves a team of experts working together to identify and evaluate the key events, processes and parameters that are critic...

Ground motion assessments are presented for evaluation of the seismic safety of K-Reactor at the Savannah River Site. Two earthquake sources are identified as the most significant to seismic hazard at the site, a M 7.5 earthquake occurring in Charleston, South Carolina, and a M 5 event occurring in the site vicinity. These events control the low fr...

Here is a new, state-of-the-art guide for assessing earthquake sources throughout the contiguous United States. Because the relevant literature on the geological aspects of earthquake assessment has become so extensive in recent years, scientists should welcome this timely and compact group of new, useful syntheses of current knowledge addressing r...

We summarize several important issues related to the characterization of earthquake sources within stable continental interiors and we present some effective methods for incorporating uncertainties in source characteristics into seismic hazard analyses. The focus of the conclusions drawn is the central and eastern United States (CEUS), but they may...

Seismic hazard assessments in the central and eastern United States (CEUS) usually rely heavily on the historical seismicity record to define the location of earthquake sources as well as the recurrence rate of these sources. Therefore, the stationarity of earthquake activity in time and space is very important to assessing the likelihood of future...

This special section is a direct outgrowth of an AGU Chapman Conference on Fault Behavior and the Earthquake Generation Process that was convened in Snowbird, Utah, from October 11 to 15, 1982. The body of information concerning the behavior of faults in space and time, especially with regard to earthquake recurrence, fault zone geometry, and the m...

Palaeoseismological data for the Wasatch and San Andreas fault zones have led to the formulation of the characteristic earthquake model, which postulates that individual faults and fault segments tend to generate essentially same size or characteristic earthquakes having a relatively narrow range of magnitudes near the maximum. Analysis of scarp-de...

Although geological and geomorphic evidence strongly suggests that the Wasatch fault zone has generated large-magnitude earthquakes in late Quaternary time, the fault zone has not been associated with earthquakes greater than magnitude 512 in the past 133 yr. Therefore, realistic estimates of the likelihood of future damaging earthquakes must be ba...

Abstract

Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) requires expressions of the location, rate, and size of future seismicity. By definition, a PSHA is forward-looking in time -- we commonly use the results to design or evaluate engineered structures over their future lifetimes -- but relies on our perceptions and knowledge of the past. The "predictive" a...

Evaluating seismic hazards in the Basin and Range Province poses significant challenges due, in large part, to an inadequate empirical database. Despite a dramatic increase in paleoseismic investigations of Basin and Range faults in the past decade, long inter-event times, limitations associated with age-dating, and geologic, financial, and physica...

This report describes a new seismic source characterization (SSC) model for the Central and Eastern United States (CEUS). It will replace the Seismic Hazard Methodology for the Central and Eastern United States, EPRI Report NP-4726 (July 1986) and the Seismic Hazard Characterization of 69 Nuclear Plant Sites East of the Rocky Mountains, Lawrence Li...

The occurrence of the damaging 1983 M[sub w] 6.8 Borah Peak, Idaho earthquake, which ruptured a central segment of the Lost River fault, has increased the awareness of seismic hazards in this portion of the Northern Basin and Range Province (NBR). As a result, comprehensive deterministic and probabilistic seismic hazard analyses were performed for...

A methodology to estimate the hazard of earthquake ground motion at a site has been developed. The methodology consists of systematic procedures to characterize earthquake sources, the seismicity parameters of those sources, and functions for the attenuation of seismic energy, incorporating multiple input interpretations by earth scientists. Uncert...