Large pools for storing spent fuel elements from nuclear reactors are being proposed to augment the present storage capacity of pools located at nuclear power plants and fuel reprocessing plants. These pools will be part of either independent spent fuel storage installations or large reprocessing plants. Because of the large size of the pools, seismic loads are of significant interest, and in particular the adequacy of current design methods for calculating seismic loads was of special concern. An evaluation of design methods representative of current practice was carried out, and the results are summarized. The evaluation was based on a comparison of total structural loads obtained by these methods with those obtained using the LUSH code. The LUSH code offered a combination of latest technologies in structural analysis involving soil-structure interaction.