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Date: 4/19/2021

Session Time: 3:45 PM to 4:45 PM Pacific

Seismic Hazard Analysis for Critical Infrastructure

The term critical infrastructure refers to the facilities and systems that provide vital services to a nation. Examples of critical infrastructure include nuclear power plants and nuclear waste repositories, dams and infrastructure that supports the emergency services sector, energy sector and water systems, among others. Potential damage or destruction to any of these facilities or systems would likely have a detrimental effect on public health, safety and security. Regulatory guidance defines appropriate procedures to perform planning, siting, data collection and analysis needed to ensure the physical elements of critical infrastructure are located and constructed to sufficiently withstand seismic loads and avoid earthquake-related effects of permanent ground displacement such as surface faulting and liquefaction. These types of studies involve rigorous data collection and site-specific analysis that considers seismogenic sources over a wide area. The results of these studies can be of great benefit to neighboring and regional communities because the level of detail and areal extent is often much greater than conventional studies for non-critical infrastructure. When critical infrastructure is impacted by an earthquake, post-event assessments are performed to document the resulting deformation and to determine the extent and nature of the impact on critical structures for the purpose of improving engineering practices in the future. In this session, we welcome submissions that cover a wide-range of seismic hazard-related studies and analysis that have been performed to ensure the resiliency of critical infrastructure. We have a particular interest in submissions that discuss key insights from recent seismic events that discuss ground shaking and building damage, triggered ground failure in proximity to infrastructure and complexities related to surface fault deformation and pipelines.

Conveners

Mark Zellman, BGC Engineering, Inc. (mzellman@bgcengineering.com)
Joanna R. Redwine, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (jredwine@usbr.gov)
Laurel M. Bauer, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (laurel.bauer@nrc.gov)

Poster Presentations