{Title of Document}: A Review of the Criteria Related to

Seismic Design Spectrum for Selected Nuclear Facilities

{Author(s)} John M. Nichols
{Corresponding (first) author}: John M
{Revision Number}
37
{Submission date for review 1}:
{Submission of revised document}:
{Paper File Name}
C:\Documents and Settings\nicholsj\My Documents\Word\Papers\Paper031W\paper031.doc
{Proposed Publisher} ASCE
{Number of pages} 10
{Aims} 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

To review the spectra developed by Newmark and Hall in 1978 as a result of

the additional information gained since that time.
To look at the Nuclear Explosions to see if the 1-2 Hz range develops pulses.
To use tripart charts
To use the Hanford Facilities as an example.
The consider the equation for the Bandwidth developed by Newmark and
Hall and consider whether it

{Target audience}:

Practicing Engineers in the field, who are not necessarily familiar

with Fast Fourier transforms or large intraplate earthquakes or the
theory of pulses in earthquakes. Limited seismological knowledge.1

{Outline of Papers Data and Results}

1.
2.
3.
4.

Footnotes guide the reviewer to understand the intent of the authors.

A Review of the Criteria Related to Seismic Design

Spectrum for Selected Nuclear Facilities
J.M. Nichols2
ABSTRACT
Newmark and Hall established the Criteria related to the Seismic Design of Selected
Nuclear Facilities in 1978. This paper reviews the seismic design spectrum for
selected nuclear facilities with specific reference to the 0.5 to 2 Hz range of
frequencies. Data used to support this review and any suggested changes to the
Newmark and Hall standard are based on findings from recent large intraplate events
in Canada and India, synthetic data on the New Madrid seismic zone, the Russian data
on seismic traces for nuclear explosions and from recent studies on pulse loadings.
The results show the bandwidth limitation used by Newmark, whilst valid for a range
of earthquakes is too restrictive for earthquakes that contain pulse loadings. The key
element of the analysis is in the use of the Fast Fourier Transform, the mathematics of
odd functions, and the Fourier series specific to earthquake traces containing 1 to 2
Hz pulses to review and adjust the bandwidth limitation. These findings are
considered valid for intraplate areas including the central and eastern United States
and will affect the design spectrum for some buildings.

Curtin

INTRODUCTION
The relevant section for the
LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review outlines the development of the seismic standards in the last
half century and presents a summary of some of the critical earthquake data that has
been used to establish these standards. NRC (2002) has control of the Nuclear Power
Industry within the legal requirement of the US Government regulations (10 CFR).
The United States government3 has been developing facilities within the North
American continental region that use or process nuclear materials since WW2. These
facilities are scattered throughout the lower 48 states within interplate and intraplate
regional areas.
We are using the example of the recent development at the Hanford Nuclear Site to
illustrate the changes in these standards that have occurred in the fifty years. The
Department of Energy4 (DOE) controls the Hanford site in the Cascade mountain
region of Washington State that contains nuclear facilities including a power plant.
The site has a radioactive liquid waste storage facility that dates from 1944. A
planned waste vitrification plant (WVP) will provide the DOE with a method to treat
the liquid waste. The treated solid waste output can then be placed in to a long-term
storage unit. These WVP facilities are vulnerable to damage in a seismic event
(Newmark and Hall, 1978; DOE 1999).

There is debate between American and British English as to whether government is plural or singular.
I have used the preferred American (Murphy, 1994).
4
The style of the paper uses a reader-centered format. Each section is broken into paragraphs with a
topic sentence for each paragraph and a continuity thread from the general to the specific for each
section. We try to reach a conclusion in the Literature Review as to why this paper is required. The
style derives from the Manual {.} used extensively in Australian Universities.

The site-design criteria report for the Hanford WVP has provided a summary of the
seismic design methods used from 1944 to the present in the development of nuclear
facilities such as power plants (DOE 1999; 10 CFR). These methods can be placed in
the context of the 20th Century development of engineering seismology. The earliest
method has been dated from Sanos use in 1916 of the equivalent shear load for
building design5. Richter has summarized the available knowledge on engineering
seismology up till 1958 within a world-wide framework. As part of this text, Richter
has provided a table of estimated acceleration with frequency for design purposes
(Table 1). The shaded numerals represent the most common data for moderately
strong ground motions. (Richter, 1958, 25). These two historical points provide a
guide as to the rate of development of seismic design standards in the first half of the
last century. They illustrate the level of development of the standards during the early
design stages for the facilities on the Hanford site.
Table 1 Richters 1958 Estimated Design Seismic Acceleration
Acceleration a (g)
1
0.1
0.01

Amplitude of Surface Movement (mm)

0.001 0.01 0.1 1.0 10 100 1000
500
160
50

160
50
16

50
16
5

16 5
1.6
5 1.6 0.5
1.6 0.5 0.16

0.5
0.16
0.05

Gubbins6(.) records the introduction of the world seismic network in the late 1950s
to the early 1970s that occurred during the development of a number of the facilities
at the Hanford site. A significant increase did occur in the number of stations and the

Umemura details the work of Sano (1916) presenting the concepts of seismic coefficients for lateral
force design in aseismic design and then states that Naito subsequently used this material in designing
buildings in the Kanto of Japan. These buildings withstood the great Kanto 1923 earthquake. There
exists anecdotal evidence that the use of lateral force provisions were developed by several researchers
in the early 1900s.
6
Gubbins, D., (1992), Seismology and Plate Tectonics, (Cambridge: Cambridge UP), 2nd ed, 276.

quality of the equipment that has been recording the movements of the earth surface
since the time of the Cold War. The principal need for this new equipment has been to
measure the seismic traces that were generated from nuclear blasts. This data was not
as freely available as the early seismic information that had been available to Richter.
Kim and Richards (2001) have summarized the recently released secret data from the
Russian seismic data collection site at Borovoye. This data has provided digital
signals for about 68 per cent of all known nuclear explosions that provides a wealth of
data that is now available for signal processing and analysis of pulse loads. In the field
of signal processing, Cooley and Tukey in the mid 1960s developed the discrete Fast
Fourier Transform (DFFT) which has provided an alternate method to examine the
frequency spectra for a time signal (Brigham, 1974)7. Newmark and Hall (1978) have
established the earthquake spectra (termed NH1978S) used for nuclear facilities but
did not use the DFFT method relying on a rigorous mathematical analysis of seismic
data. This analysis has been explained by Chopra ().
Newmark and Hall (????) studied the impact of pulses on the design spectra and
earthquake traces. They had been using the El Centro and the Eureka earthquakes as
examples in the analysis. NH1978S earthquake spectra can be compared to the DFFT
of the 1940 El Centro earthquake(-) and the 1954 Eureka earthquake (+) and Richter
estimates of a design earthquake using a tri-part chart8 (Figure 1).
Two spectra are plotted from the Newmark and Hall results. Spectra NH1978Sa has a
peak ground acceleration of 0.16g and Spectra NH1978Sb has a peak ground
acceleration of 0.32 g. These two spectra correspond to the equivalent peak ground
acceleration from the El Centro and Eureka earthquakes used by Newmark and Hall
in their 1978 analysis. These spectra demonstrate the spectrum amplification factors
7
8

Brigham outlines the development in the mid sixties by Cooley and Tukey of their FFT algorithm.
The original tri-part chart used by Newmark in terms of frequency has been used in this paper.

developed by Newmark and Hall (1978, Table 2 and 3.) are observable in the DFFT
of the acceleration signals. The plotted results in Figure 1 have demonstrated that the
NH1978Sb spectrum bounds the DFFT of the El Centro earthquake for all frequencies
greater than 0.5 Hz. The NH1978Sa spectrum bounds the El Centro earthquake for
frequencies greater than 2 Hz. The Eureka earthquake DFFT shows a broad band of
acceleration at the 0.2 g level from 0.3 to 3 Hz as observed by Newmark and Hall
(????. Figure 2.49). The SDOF operator that was used by Newmark and Hall ()
mirrors the
Richter (1958) has considered that the constant velocity segment of the spectra (the
band width limitation constraint applies to the constant velocity segment) occurs from
1.6 to 5 Hz. Newmark and Hall (1978) have considered that the constant velocity
segment ranged from 0.3 to 2 Hz. Hall (2002) has stated that the earthquake data from
their research supported the inequality

1v 2 < ad < 33v 2

(1)

This equation is obviously bounded by the potential and kinetic energy systems, the
principle of entropy, and the dissipation and transmissions of energy by complex
damping.
Figure 1 Tri-part Chart

10
1g

1m

Velocity (m/s)

1
Newmark Fig 5
0.32 g
0.16g
NMZS MCE

0.1

Richter 1958

0.01

0.001
0.1

10

100

Frequency (Hz)

Chopra ( , 225) has explained the derivation of the band width limitation that was
established by Newmark and Hall in 1978 as:
ad = 6v 2

(2)

Equations (1) and (2) have been expressed in terms of energy units from Newtonian
physics. The peak to peak amplitude is 2a for a Fourier component of the harmonic
waves that result corresponds the limit of 1 in equation (1). The limit of 33 to 35 was
physically observed by Newmark and Hall.
Figure 2 Phase Angle for the El Centro Earthquake

Phase Angle (PI units)

1.5

0.5

0
0

0.5

1.5

2.5

Frequency (Hz)

This figure uses the tri-part chart to present the acceleration, velocity and the
displacement for a given frequency, which are related by the law of differentiation.
The velocity ( v ) component for a harmonic wave has a

phase angle difference to

the accleration ( a ) and displacement ( d ) components. Newmark and Hall (1978, 25)
presented an estimated power band for their earthquakes that can be expressed as an
inequality using velocity as the dependent variable:

1v 2 < ad < 6v 2

(1)

.
Kim and (., 8) analyzed a set of nuclear explosions detonated on October 17, 1978
using transform techniques. This data provide an example of the pulse loading
generated by blasts separated in time by 0.4 seconds. They identified in the frequency

domain the resulting pattern from a harmonic pulse loading decaying with time,
which has been termed the Kim Rule of odd integers (KROI.). This rule states that the
harmonic pulse will decay generating odd multiple harmonic waves. So a 1 Hz pulse
generates a 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 pulse set. The amplitude of each harmonic pulse decreases
with increasing pulse frequency.
Johnson and Kantor () summarize the issue of seismicity in intraplate regions,
confirming the comments by Richter (1958, .) on historically seismically quiet
regions...
The Newmark and Hall spectra in Figure 1 whebn compared to the El Centro
earthquake FFT provides insight into the decisions that they made in developing the
1978 Spectra for the NRC. Hall (2001)9 outlined the basis for the selecting an
assumption of a constant velocity segment of the spectra. We conclude that this
constant velocity assumption for the spectra provides a reasonable match to the data
for earthquake motion at distance, however recent intraplate earthquake and nuclear
explosion data suggest that it was a non-conservative assumption for a range of
subsequently measured ground motions.
Newmark and Hall (.) investigated pulse loadings related to nuclear explosions.
Their work shows the resulting apparent constant velocity segment from some
earthquake events, but their work demonstrates the effect of single pulses and
multiple pulses on design spectra. Cueste and Aschheim (200?) investigated pulse
loading for determining R factors for the design of inelastic structures. These
investigators concluded that the quadratic pulse provided the closest match to a

9
Hall, W.?., (2001) in a personal conversation with the first author indicated that J.A Blume had
suggested an alternative spectra, but this Blume variant to the 1978 Spectra was not used by Newmark
and Hall.

series of earthquake traces, except for the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. A synthetic
earthquake trace based on the Cueste and Aschheim algorithm

LITERATURE REVIEW
DOE (1999). Review of Seismic Design Criteria used at Selected DOE Hanford Site

Nuclear Facilities and at the DOE Waste Vitrification Plant. Richmond, WA,
Office of Radiological, Nuclear, and Process Safety Regulation of the TWRS
Privatization Contractor: 58.