Nuclear Power

Since Japan's 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has renewed its focus on flood and seismic risks to our nation's nuclear power plants.  Power plant operators faced with reassessing these risks rely on Exponent to help meet their most critical nuclear engineering challenges, including evaluating potential seismic, storm surge, and flooding scenarios.

Storm surge occurs when high winds and decreases in atmospheric pressure during tropical storms and hurricanes elevate ocean water surface levels. It can cause significant flooding in coastal areas and may overwhelm existing flood protection infrastructure like seawalls, dikes, levees, and breakwaters. Exponent's nuclear engineering consultants use the best available data and advanced modeling techniques to develop statistically sound predictions of storm surge levels. Bathymetric and onshore high-resolution topographic data, including light detection and ranging (LiDAR), historical tidal information, and meteorological data are key inputs to these predictions.