Adelaide earthquake risk factors in with Osborne submarine builds

There’s one natural feature of Adelaide that doesn’t sit well with nuclear reactors, meaning our shipyards will need to be built to cope.

• See if you live on a fault line

Infrastructure to build and maintain nuclear submarines at Obsorne Naval Shipyard will have to be designed to withstand earthquakes.

The existence of a nuclear reactor plant in the submarines will require the application of stringent requirements to demonstrate they can be built and maintained safely.

This will include building dry dock systems that meet demanding criteria for resistance to seismic events such as earthquakes and to naturally occurring events such as tide, wind and rainfall.

Adelaide is considered at risk of earthquakes as large as magnitude 7.0 and straddles several faults. These include the Para Fault, which runs from around Gawler, under Adelaide’s northern suburbs, under the CBD and out towards Glenelg, and the Eden-Burnside Fault under the eastern and southern suburbs.

The US Navy faced its own challenges meeting that criteria earlier this year when it abruptly suspended submarine repair work at four West Coast dry docks.

A statement released by the US Navy cited the need to strengthen the docks to deal with potential future earthquakes.

“The recently conducted seismic assessment, executed as part of the Navy’s long-range Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), identified potential issues associated with the remote possibility of a large-scale earthquake occurring simultaneously with a submarine maintenance availability,” a statement said.

While those docks sit in a major fault zone in the US, Adelaide’s earthquake risk will still need to be assessed and managed during the expansion at Osborne.

This shutdown has reportedly caused major delays in the submarine maintenance schedule in the US, which some feared could have impacted the AUKUS deal.

But with the subs pact now confirmed, Australia will be eager to not make the same mistakes.