I’m no engineer, but aren’t there always additional safety factors built into any large design?
sor of like “It can withstand a 6.0 quake, maybe even a 8.0 quake, but we cannot guarantee the 8.0 number”
Of course the guys with the pocket protectors cannot come out and say that, if the plant did fail in 8.0, then they would get sued.
Let’s pose that one to someone more informed than me.
Nuke - ping to #43
I do not know about Japan, but in the US nuke plants are designed to guarantee safe shutdown for the maximum proposed earthquake, AKA Design Basis Earthquake. Safe shutdown does not mean you will not have piping ruptures or broken equipment or even no radioactive liquid/gas releases, it means that enough equipment survives to place the reactor in a safe shutdown state, where the reactor is shut down and enough cooling water flows to keep it cool and the fuel covered with water. The only equipment that must survive intact is the reactor vessel, control rods/drives, one diesel for power, and one train of Safety Injection/residual heat removal.