AREA OF EXPERTISE

a.    Nonlinear behaviour of structures

b.    Structural robustness and progressive collapse.

c.    Structural behaviour under fire.

• Memeber of the Advisory Board of the 5th International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2-4 September 2013 - Organizer of a special session on "The Role of Collapse Safety in the Design of Sustainable Structures" at the same conference.
• "Member of the National Organizing commitee of the 6th International Conference on Bridge Maintanance, Safety and Management (IABMAS 2012), Lake Maggiore, Italy, on 12-16 July 2012 - Organizer of a special session on "Vulnerability of Bridges to Fire and Explosion" at the same conference.
• Charperson in several international conferences.
• Coordination of a consortium of 13 international institutions for the preparation of a research proposal for the FP7 program on the topic of Infrastructure Resilience, submitted on Decemeber 2011.
• Organizer of a special session on "Fire Safety Design" in the 4th international conference on Structural Engineering Mechanics and Computation (SEMC 2010), Cape Town, South Africa, 8 September 2010;
• Member of the International Association of Bridge Maintenance and Safety (IABMAS).

Visiting researcher at the Baustatik und Stahlbau Department (leader Prof. Starossek) of the “Teschnische Universitaet Hamburg-Harburg” (TUHH) in Hamburg, Germany, during the periods:

• April'08-October'09 as visiting researcher
• November´04-July'05 for the preparation of part of the Master thesis

Exchange student at the Universitaet Carolo-Wilhelmina of Braunschweig, Germany, during the period May-October'99, in the framework of the Erasmus program. 

MAIN RESEARCH TOPICS:

1. Performance-based design for exceptional actions Capacity design for fire, impact, explosion
2. Nonlinear behavior of structures: Theoretical framework and modeling
3. Structural robustness Assessment and progressive collapse investigations
4. Structural fire safety Effects of fire and explosion on structures Fire-induced collapse mechanisms

SOFTWARE KNOWLEDGE

• FEM programs: Abaqus, Ansys, SAP2000, Diana, Strand7
• CFD programs: FDS, Pirosym, FLACS
• Programming languages: Visual Basic .Net, APDL, Java (basic), Pascal.
  A software for the verification of prestressed concrete sections has been developed with Visual Basic.net.
  A program for the verification of structural robustness has been developed with APDL (Ansys Parametric Design Language)
• Operating systems: Windows and main Microsoft application suites (Word, Power Point, Excel, Visual Studio); Basic knowledge of Linux