Upon completion of my master’s degree in Structural Engineering from IIT Bombay, I was driven by a strong motivation to contribute to India’s pursuit of clean and sustainable energy. This aspiration led me to join the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. (NPCIL) as a Scientific Officer, where I had the opportunity to apply advanced structural engineering knowledge to one of the nation’s most critical infrastructure sectors.

During my tenure at NPCIL, I was involved in critical design and analysis tasks related to nuclear power plant infrastructure. As part of the comprehensive orientation and training programme, I gained foundational knowledge in nuclear physics, nuclear engineering, multiscale modelling, and materials science. This technical training was complemented by site visits to operational nuclear power plants, where I gained exposure to modern engineering systems, reactor technologies, gas turbines, and cooling systems.

My work focused extensively on the analysis and design of prestressed concrete containment structures, particularly cylindrical and spherical shells with complex openings. I developed practical understanding of stress concentrations near structural discontinuities, design for various limit states, and incorporation of extreme loading conditions, including seismic events, thermal loads, and system-level failure scenarios. I also gained hands-on experience with prestressing systems and their role in ensuring containment integrity.

One of my most significant contributions was the development of a high-fidelity finite element (FE) model of the Nuclear Building (NB), encompassing the inner containment, outer containment, and internal structural components. A key feature of this work was the integration of a combined piled-raft foundation (CPRF) system, specifically designed for deployment on alluvial soil—relevant for several new nuclear power plant sites across India.

Accurately modelling soil–structure interaction was a central challenge. The FE model incorporated material nonlinearity using the Mohr–Coulomb soil model and advanced contact modelling to simulate the complex interface between the piled-raft system and the surrounding soil. These nonlinearities posed convergence difficulties, which I addressed through refined modelling strategies and stabilisation techniques.

To improve interface characterisation, I proposed an analytical procedure to estimate contact properties based on experimentally measurable soil parameters. This methodology was validated through single pile simulations and extended to multi-pile and full piled-raft systems. The final mesh-converged 3D model, comprising millions of degrees of freedom, was used to assess the structural behaviour of the Nuclear Building under multiple loading scenarios.

This detailed modelling framework was instrumental in finalising the pile layout for the Nuclear Building at the Gorakhpur Haryana Anu Vidyut Pariyojana site. The findings and methodologies were presented at several international conferences and contributed significantly to improving design practices and soil–structure interaction analysis in nuclear infrastructure projects.

This experience provided me with a strong foundation in structural mechanics, advanced solid mechanics, and computational modelling. It marked a key phase in my professional journey, reinforcing my interest in advanced simulation techniques and setting the stage for my subsequent academic research in computational mechanics and materials engineering.