Ricerc@Sapienza

In Automotive and Aerospace industries, Topology Optimization (TO) is being used for the last few decades to produce lightweight structures. On the other hand, TO produces very complex geometrical features (i.e. irregular shape and hidden cavities along the thickness) that is sometimes difficult to be manufactured even with Additive Manufacturing (AM) and Casting techniques. In this paper suitable design and manufacturing constraint (MC) are applied during TO process that act as an Optimization Tool (OT) and improves geometrical features of the mechanical structures for easy manufacturing.

We introduce the first learning-based method for recovering shapes from Laplacian spectra. Our model consists of a cycle-consistent module that maps between learned latent vectors of an auto-encoder and sequences of eigenvalues.

Abstract
PURPOSE:

Damage effects on the dynamic response of the masonry bridge 'Ponte delle Torri' in Spoleto are investigated. To model ancient masonry material response, a scalar damage variable is introduced in the stress-strain law, whose evolution is driven by a nonlocal strain measure. A 3D finite element formulation is used. Bridge natural frequencies and modal shapes are evaluated and compared with experimental results. Then, the nonlinear step-by-step dynamic analysis of the entire bridge and an equivalent pier is performed, considering a set of natural earthquakes.

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has gained an extensive application in the medical field, such as soft tissues simulations. In particular, colorectal simulations can be used to understand the interaction with the surrounding tissues, or with instruments used in surgical procedures. Although several works have been introduced considering small displacements, as a result of the forces exerted on adjacent tissues, FEA applied to colorectal surgical scenarios is still a challenge.

Several failures of recurved concrete crownwalls have been observed in recent years. This work aims to get a better insight within the processes underlying the loading phase of these structures due to non-breaking wave impulsive loading conditions and to identify the dominant failure modes. The investigation is carried out through an offline one-way coupling of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) generated wave pressure time series and a time-varying structural Finite Element Analysis. The recent failure of the Civitavecchia (Italy) recurved parapet is adopted as an explanatory case study.

The interface bonding between filler and matrix governs the elastic properties of the overall polymer/nanotube nanocomposites and is generally difficult to model. In this work, a cohesive law based on the Lennard-Jones potential was established to describe the van der Waals interactions at the nanotube-polymer interface.