Low-Cycle Fatigue Based Seismic Risk Evaluation of Steel Structures

The design of nuclear power plant structures in seismic environments involves risk associated with the uncertainty in structural-resistance parameters, performance requirements and the random nature of the seismic event. Seismic safety can be formulated as a reliability problem in which the load capacity of a structure must exceed the demand imposed by a random event (i.e., earthquake) with an acceptable probability or an acceptable margin of safety. In a structural reliability approach, the relevant measure of performance is the probability of failure