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Research as graduate student at Caltech
My current research focuses on the development of a new finite
element for thin plates and shells, both of great importance in many
engineering structures and applications. For this reason an
efficient finite element approximation scheme is desirable to
properly model them both in the range of small deformation and
finite kinematics (including the possibility of efficiently using
the same element in the study of fracture propagation and
fragmentation).
One of the main problem faced in the development of plates and
shells elements consists in avoiding locking in the thin plate or
shell limit. In my current work, the optimal convergence of the
scheme is assured by the satisfaction of the inf-sup condition.
Moreover, only C0 triangular finite elements are used to
preserve generality and efficiency also in view of future
applications and developments involving dynamic and fracture
analyses.
Aside my main research project, I am using an existing shell code developed in my research group to study the effect of a blast on thin composite shell structures.
Research at Politecnico di Milano
During the development of my Laurea thesis and under a subsequent
fellowship, my research focused on concrete dams deterioration,
on the thermal analysis of concrete dams and on the dynamic analysis
of concrete dams.
First, I develop a new alkali-aggregate reaction (AAR) model to
analyze concrete dams affected by this increasingly common concrete
deterioration. This model takes into account the chemical-mechanical
coupling of great importance in analyzing dams affected by AAR.
In order to validate and test the model, I applied it to the
analysis of the stress state in two existing dams located in Italy
and Switzerland and affected by AAR expansion. During the analysis I
also developed a parameter identification strategy using the
trust region algorithm coupled with the finite
element code Merlin.
Since the alkali aggregate reaction is strongly dependent on
temperature, I subsequently studied the thermal analysis of concrete
dams and coupled it with AAR.
During the last period, I was involved in the test and validation of the finite element code Merlin for parallel computation, implict/explicit dynamic analysis.
Finally I contributed to a new code for mesh generation in finite element dam analysis.
The principal investigator of all my research projects was professor V. Saouma, University of Colorado, Boulder and visiting professor at Politecnico di Milano. Professor V. Saouma is also responsible for the finite element code Merlin and he was co-advisor of my Laurea thesis.