**Author details**

Prabhakar Sharma *Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden*

### **5. References**


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© 2012 Katona et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2012 Katona et al., licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**Seismic Safety Analysis and** 

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

very important for the operating nuclear power plants.

continued safely if an earthquake hits the plant.

Tamás János Katona

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51368

**1. Introduction** 

**1.1. Background** 

**Upgrading of Operating Nuclear Power Plants** 

Experience of the March 11 2011, Great Tohoku earthquake clearly demonstrated that the earthquakes might be the dominating contributors to the overall risk of nuclear power plants (Institute of Nuclear Power Operations [INPO], 2011); International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], 2007). The seismic probabilistic safety assessments of several nuclear power plants also provided similar results. On the other hand, experiences show that plants survive much larger earthquakes than those considered in the design base, as it was the case of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, where the safety classified structures, systems and components survived the Niigata-Chuetsu-Oki earthquake in 2007 without damage and loss of function (IAEA, 2007). In spite of the nuclear catastrophe of the Fukushima Daiichi plant caused by the tsunami after Great Tohoku earthquake 11th of March 2011, the behaviour of thirteen nuclear unit in the impacted area on the East-shore of the Honshu Island demonstrated high earthquake resistance. Consequently, proper understanding and assessment of the safety for the case earthquake (and generally for the external hazards) is

For the operating plants basic questions to be answered are, whether the nuclear power plant (NPP) is safe enough within the design basis and whether the operation can be

The designer and operators were mainly focusing on the first question, i.e. whether the reactor can be shut down, cooled-down, the residual heat can be removed from the core and spent-fuel stored at the plant, and the radioactive releases can be limited below the acceptable level in case of an earthquake. The second question became important especially after series of events when large nuclear capacities were shutdown for assessment of plant

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