Generation of Site Specific Response Spectrum near Nuclear Power Plants: A Preliminary Case Study at Rawatbhata Station

Abstract

Nuclear power plant is one of the largest source of producing electricity in India after thermal, hydroelectric and renewable sources of electricity. As of 2013, India has 21 nuclear reactors in operation in 6 nuclear power plants, having an installed capacity of 5780 MW and producing a total of 30, 293 GWh of electricity while six other reactors are under construction and are expected to generate an additional 6,100 MW. After 2011 Fukushima earthquake in Japan, safety of nuclear reactors has become a major concern. For assessing safety it is utmost important to have information on expected earthquake events. In case of lack of sufficient information, artificial ground motions may be generated by using geological features and faults information. This study presents simulation of near field generated ground motions of Rawatbhata nuclear power plant. For this purpose, three faults nearer to the power plant have been selected to the generate ground motions using semi-empirical approach. It is observed that as the source (M) of the earthquake increases, the amplitude of the ground motion, duration and energy content increases. Similarly, the spectral accelerations also increase due to all three active faults.