My time at IIT Bombay was one of the most exciting and transformative chapters of my academic journey. As a student and a budding researcher, the institute offered an exceptional environment enriched with opportunities for advanced education, cutting-edge research, sports, and cultural development. I was deeply inspired by the academic atmosphere and intellectually stimulating coursework, particularly in subjects such as advanced solid mechanics, numerical methods, structural dynamics, and computational fluid dynamics.

My interest in nonlinear structural dynamics and its applications to earthquake engineering began to take shape during this period. I pursued my M.Tech. project on Seismic Fragility Analysis of a Primary Containment Structure Using Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) under the supervision of Prof. Siddhartha Ghosh. The study focused on a 700 MWe Indian Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) primary containment structure — a critical component in nuclear power plant safety systems.

We developed an idealised nonlinear beam-based lumped mass model of the containment structure and proposed a analytical fragility analysis procedure. The methodology involved nonlinear time-history analysis under scaled ground motions using 20 earthquake records of varying intensities. Structural responses such as inter-storey drift ratios and maximum tensile strains were recorded to estimate failure probabilities at different intensity levels. The structural sections were modelled using fibre-section concepts, where reinforcement fibres were smeared within the concrete matrix to capture both bending and shear behaviours accurately. Material properties were simulated using median values representative of reinforced concrete used in Indian nuclear infrastructure.

For the first time, this research quantified the seismic fragility of an Indian nuclear containment structure using advanced modelling and simulation techniques. Our key findings were published in the journal Structural Safety: Mandal, T.K., Shosh, S., & Pujari, N.N. (2016). Seismic fragility analysis of a typical Indian PHWR containment: Comparison of fragility models. Structural Safety, 58, 11–19

The work was also presented at several international conferences, receiving appreciation for its contribution to nuclear structural safety assessment using computational techniques.

This enriching experience not only deepened my technical understanding of earthquake engineering and structural analysis but also solidified my interest in research and advanced simulation—ultimately setting the course for my future academic pursuits in computational mechanics and fracture modelling.