Abstract
A reliable estimation of surface fault displacement is necessary for ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants. This paper proposes a numerical method for the estimation of fault displacement based on three dimensional finite element method. Evaluations of fault displacement using a simplified fault model are conducted to analyze the fundamental fault behavior. As a result, surface fault displacement do not smoothly change with input slip on the bottom of the main fault, but rather suddenly increases at a critical input value. Furthermore, when forced displacement is used for the input slip, it is likely that the auxiliary fault displacement is underestimated. It has been found that using equivalent nodal force as the tension boundary condition could avoid the underestimation of the auxiliary fault displacement.
