Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year. (2017-2018 to 2018-2019)

A great deal of effort has been made in the past in order to understand and numerically formulate thex000D
soil-structure interaction (SSI) effect. Of particular interest in this study is to appropriately analyze and designx000D
containment structures which are built underground that interact with the surrounding soil. This is of particularx000D
significance when small module reactors (SMR's) are hosted in a containment structure that is builtx000D
underground. Any damage to the containment structure could have significant consequences on SMRs. Inx000D
these structures, for functionality reasons, crack and leakage control is of prime design consideration. In thex000D
proposed study, it is required to determine as how the presence of the soil can affect the dynamic response ofx000D
the containment structures. In this relation, a rationale method to determine the response modification factors inx000D
relation to above ground structures will need to be determined. In this investigation, the major issues are thex000D
development of cracks in the vulnerable regions of the containment due to different loading applicationsx000D
including seismic. The crack-leakage potential in in these structures needs to be considered. Current designx000D
codes and standards do not address this issue and it is left to design engineers to conservatively consider it inx000D
their design. This is an area that requires a detailed investigation. The main objective of this research is tox000D
investigate the dynamic behavior of underground concrete containment structures. The study will be carried outx000D
using a rigorous finite element (FE) method capable of including the effect of soil-structure interactionx000D
considering both geometric and material non-linearities in a three-dimensional (3D) domain. During the coursex000D
of this study, an investigation will be carried out to determine how different soil types as defined in buildingx000D
codes affect the dynamic response of such structures.