Andrew Whittaker, Ph.D., S.E.
Professor and Chair, Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering,
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

The nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi in 2011 has focused the world’s attention on the analysis and design of safety-related nuclear structures for extreme loadings, including beyond design basis earthquakes and tsunamis, tornado- and hurricane-borne missiles, and malevolent attack using improvised explosive devices and commercial aircraft. The presentation will introduce the domain of nuclear structures in the United States, and compare and contrast design hazards and risk-based procedures for the design of buildings and nuclear structures. Subjects of current research in the civil/structural design of nuclear structures will be introduced, including small modular and liquid metal reactors.

Andrew Whittaker is Professor and Chair in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at the University at Buffalo, and serves as the Director of MCEER. He is a registered civil and structural engineer in the State of California. Whittaker served as the Vice-President and President of the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (www.curee.org) from 2003 to 2011, and on the Board of Directors of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (www.eeri.org) and the World Seismic Safety Initiative from 2008 to 2010. Currently, he is a member of the Advisory Board for the Southern California Earthquake Center. Whittaker serves on a number of national committees including ASCE 4, ASCE 7, and ASCE 43, and ACI 349. His research interests are broad and include earthquake and blast engineering of buildings, bridges and nuclear structures, and development of next-generation armor for civilian and military applications. His work on nuclear structures in the last decade has included seismic isolation of structures, systems and components; low aspect ratio reinforced concrete shear walls; steel-plate concrete composite shear walls; seismic hazard characterization; and soil-structure and structure-soil-structure interaction analysis. The US National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, US Federal Highway Administration, and Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission fund his research. He consults to federal agencies, regulators, consultancies, contractors, and utilities in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia.