Design of Underground Protective Structures

Current methods for the design of underground structures are reviewed. It is shown that they share the same approach when including the effects of soil‐structure interaction (SSI) in the design loading. This common approach has a major handicap in that it attempts to dissociate the loading from the structural response. An alternate approach which recognizes the importance of this coupling is described. This approach leads to a design methodology which incorporates the effect of SSI in a systematic manner. Furthermore, the implementation of this methodology is straightforward and requires little or no modification to state‐of‐the‐art design and analysis computer programs.