Seismic soil-structure interaction in nuclear power plants: An extensive review

The mutual behavior between the response of structure and soil, named soil-structure interaction (SSI) may become significantly important to be considered when structures are founded on deformable soil. In particular, critical infrastructures like nuclear power plants (NPPs) are particularly vulnerable to the consequences associated with the failure of any structural components because of the mutual interaction between the structure and the soil. In addition, soil mechanisms under strong earthquakes are highly non-linear and this reflects the discordance among the researchers for the selection of the most representative analysis model of nuclear structures. In this article, the role of SSI is assessed by presenting a critical discussion of the contemporary methods performed for the seismic analyses of NPPs. In particular, the paper proposes a discussion of the key issues that might facilitate the overall understanding of SSI phenomenon in case of NPPs.