Mandate

• To carry out conceptual planning of buildings of various types ranging from office, R&D laboratories, industrial buildings, office interiors, auditoriums, meeting rooms and special buildings by conceptualizing, planning and designing of buildings with form, space and ambience that reflect functional, technical, structural, social, environmental and aesthetics aspects also considering achievable climatic and sustainable green building concepts at IGCAR and other DAE constituent units at Kalpakkam.
• To deliver structural conceptual plan, tender, construction phase design, drawings meeting functional requirement, structural analysis, design of various active and non-active laboratories, industrial & infrastructure buildings meeting relevant codes & standards and interiors at IGCAR and other DAE constituent units at Kalpakkam.
• To carry out structural analysis & design of civil structures for Fast Reactor and associated specific studies related to structural safety & construction feasibility.
• To carry out structural safety margin assessment of old reinforced concretes structuresconsidering various environmental loads as per prevailing standards and condition assessment, formulation of repair methodologies and renovation, retrofitting of the same.
• To achieve quality control of construction materials and development of high performance concrete including design mixes including fast reactor application.

Achievements

Development of Infrastructure Facility at
DAE Nodal Centre, Chennai.

Interior finishes of Office, Meeting rooms and Auditorium

Developing 2D& 3D renderings views for buildings

Site Evaluation and Determination of Site Specific Parameters

Site evaluation is carried out for a Nuclear Facility based on siting criteria as specified by National and International Guidelines considering nearby population, demographic studies, proximities to airports etc. Site evaluation was carried out for PFBR and other facilities. Site specific parameters such as extreme and severe wind, ground motion parameters for Operating Basis Earthquake (OBE) and Safe Shutdown Earthquake (SSE), design basis flood (1000 and 10000 years return period), design basis rainfall etc. have been evaluated for PFBR and various other facilities.

Seismic Analysis and Design of Nuclear Safety Related Buildings

Nuclear Safety related Building such as Reactor containment structures, Re-processing facilities and Waste storage facilities are analysed as per international Standards using site specific parameters whose period of exceedance is 1000/ 10000 years and designed as per AERB/ ACI standards. Comprehensive mathematical model using finite element model is necessary incorporating the effects of soil-structure interaction, simulation of dynamic behavior including missing mass effects, fluid-structure interaction effects etc. Nuclear Island Building (NIB) of PFBR, Ventilation stack, Head End Facility, Interim Fuel Storage Facility are some of the Nuclear Safety related structures that were designed here.

Expertise

Architectural

• Conceptual planning, preparation of schematic layout for Laboratories, Facility and Infrastructure buildings.
• Architectural design & preparation of layout and detailed architectural drawings considering climatic and sustainable green building concepts to achieve energy efficiency in the buildings.
• Interior design of Office, Meeting rooms and Auditorium
• Developing 2D & 3D Architectural Rendering views for newly proposed buildings.

Structural

• Site Evaluation and determination of Site Specific Parameters related to Structural analysis & design of nuclear facility.
• Seismic Analysis and Design of Nuclear Safety Related Buildings and Structures
• Structural Analysis and Design ofTall Structures, Laboratories and Facility and Infrastructure buildings
• Development of In house Computational Tools for Structural analysis & design
• Seismic Re-evaluation of Nuclear Safety Related and Industrial Buildings and Structures.

Concrete Laboratory and Quality Control

• Quality Control of construction materials for ongoing construction projects.
• Development of High Performance Concrete including design mixes
• Condition Assessment of Old Reinforced Concrete Structures,
• Formulation of Repair methodologies, Renovation, Retrofitting
• R&D on concrete related to the future FBR’s and infrastructure projects

Infrastructure

Record of drawings and reports

Concrete Laboratory Equipment

Sampling of concrete ingredients used at site and batching plant and further checking the suitability of the ingredients by subjecting them to various tests at quality control laboratory for ensuring intended strength of concrete, minimizing the variations in mix proportioning and ensuring engineered concrete mix at site, checking the workability of fresh concrete by carrying out slump test and also casting cube specimens for compressive strength test, computing standard deviation and establishing degree of quality control, calibration of batching plant and site concrete mixer as and when required, maintaining quality control records of batch weights and test results, conducting non-destructive tests at site for specific site requirements, sampling and testing of flexible pavement making materials for assessing their suitability in road construction, sampling and testing of sewage water from sewage treatment plant at IGCAR are the major activities of this laboratory.