Special Session 12

The special session is devoted to stimulate the scientific discussion in the research fields in which Professor Renato Sante Olivito worked for many years giving his innovative and unquestionable contributes. The reason is the retire of Prof. Olivito from the teaching and bureaucratic activities while we hope that his always young mind can serve the scientific communities for still many years. Professor Olivito research regards civil engineering and structural mechanics. With the colleagues Prof. Domenico Grimaldi, Prof Pasquale Daponte and Prof. Francesco Lamonaca he applied the findings of electronic measurement science to civil engineering. From this, many papers, congresses arise at national and international level. This special issue would be a tribute to Prof. Olivito and in line with his scientific direction and modus operandi, the research fields it concerns are: Eco sustainable composite materials for the strengthening of modern and historical masonry constructions; experimentation on FRCM; monitoring of structures; analysis of the fracture in the brittle materials; structural health monitoring systems based on the IoT paradigm; Artificial Intelligence for structural health monitoring, mechanical and physical characterization of traditional masonry techniques; numerical analysis; micro-tomography; 3-D printing; Genetic Algorithm, Math Modeling and Mathematical Physics applied to the modelling and analysis of structures.

In particular, the session will provide new information about the structural assessment of the entire cultural heritage buildings, allowing the analysis of structures belonging to different typologies and realized with different materials (steel, wood and masonry), also, for example, related to industries and archeology.

New trends and applications in the field of nondestructive and semi destructive techniques will be discussed to identify and apply new Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems including also the IoT paradigm and AI. Post-seismic and pre-seismic evaluation protocols of historical and monumental buildings will be also presented to safeguard and preserve all types of structures.

In the framework of the preservation of the cultural heritage, one of the most important aspects deals with the monitoring of the archaeological sites and cultural heritage buildings. To this aim, new technologies are nowadays available for the acquisition and elaboration of several parameters used for the health and safety assessment and the development of new mathematical model describing the structural behavior of these buildings and sites. Main challenges concern with heterogeneity and mobility of the Smart Objects used to acquire data, different kind of connections, energy saving, energy harvesting, the collection and management of the acquired data, the development and validation of new numerical models, and last but not least the development of new sensor and methodologies to manage the different materials typically used in cultural heritage building and constituting the archaeological sites. The special session will collect scientific expertise and the technologies nowadays available. The goal is to give a set of triggering contributions useful to propose new and common approaches for the design and realization of new systems for the preservation of cultural heritage.

Francesco Lamonaca, (M’11–SM’16) received: M.S. degree in Computer Science Engineering in 2005 and Ph.D. degree in Computer and System Science in 2010 from the University of Calabria, Italy; doctorate equivalences in Science (2010) and Engineering Science (2011) from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. He is now associate professor of Electronic Measurements at the University of Calabria. In 2020 he achieved the National Habilitation to Full Professor in Electric and Electronic Measurements. He won competitions as first classified: University of Calabria, Young Researchers 2010, and 2012; GMEE, mobility research grants 2011; TE-RE-RD, Best Paper Awards 2014 and 2020, Best Poster Award 2019, IEEE Vehicular Technology/Communication Society Joint Chapter Italy Section concerning with innovative ideas against Corona Virus, 2020, several outstanding reviewer awards. He is Senior Member IEEE and member of: TC-10 - Waveform Generation, Measurement & Analysis, TC 25 Medical Measurement and TC-37 - Measurements and Networking of the IEEE Society on Instrumentation and Measurement (IM), IEEE, IM, GMEE, IAHR, International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO). He is Officer of Commission A– Electromagnetic Metrology of the Union Radio Scientifique Internationale (International Union of Radio Sciences) - Italian National Committee. He has authored and co-authored over 155 papers published in international journals and conference proceedings. He is the Editor in Chief of Acta IMEKO. He is associate editor of Sensors MDPI. He is Reviewer of international journals and conferences. He is General Chair of IEEE workshop on Metrology for Living Environment (2022) and IEEE conference on Metrology for Archaeology (2022). He organized and chaired several special sessions in the field of time synchronization, structural health monitoring, distributed measurement system IoT based and measurement for health. He was Special Session Chair of MeMeA 2016 and organize the special session “Smart devices for biomedical applications and health parameters monitoring”. His current researches include: measurements, signal processing for structural health monitoring, noninvasive monitoring and testing, IoT based monitoring systems, synchronization of networking measurement instruments and sensors measurements for medical use.

Carmelo Scuro, is a research at the University of Calabria and works at Physics and Civil Engineering departments. He received the master's degree in engineering and architecture and the Ph.D. degree in "science and engineering of the environment construction and energy" at the University of Calabria, Rende, Italy, in 2012 and 2017, respectively. He has authored and co-authored over 85 papers published in international journals and conference proceedings and several book chapters. He is Reviewer of international journals.

His current research interests include the analysis of the fracture in the brittle materials through the use of acoustic emissions and structural monitoring systems based on the IoT paradigm, mechanical and physical characterization of traditional masonry techniques, numerical analysis, experimentation on FRCM, micro-tomography, 3-D printing, Genetic Algorithm, Math Modeling and Mathematical Physics.

He was the chairman of the session presented at the 2021 Metroarcheo conference in Milan, and it was reproposed, given the great success achieved.

Gabriele Milani, is a Full Professor of Structural Mechanics at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering. He has authored more than 200 papers on international journals and edited two books. He is the first author in Scopus under the keyword ‘masonry’. He organised, as the Chairman, the last International Masonry Conference IMC 2018. He has been awarded an ICE Telford Premium (2012), a most cited author diploma by Computers and Structures (2008) and a Bathe award (2014). He has been a visiting professor abroad in different countries, including UK and China. He is an editor-in-chief of two international journals, one devoted to masonry constructions (International Journal of Masonry Research and Innovation by Inderscience Publishers) and in the editorial board of several high rank journals.

Mario Daniele Piccioni, Ph.D., is full professor of Structural Mechanics at Polytechnic University of Bari, Department of Civil Engineering Sciences and Architecture. He directs “Laboratorio Ufficiale Prove Materiali M. Salvati” at Politecnico di Bari, a large laboratory acitive both in mechanics of solids and mechanics of strucures experiments. He gave research contributions on finite elasticity, stability and bifurcation, non-destructive experimental techniques, tensegrity structures, dynamic identification of structures, limit analysis of masonry arches and vaults, reinforced masonry structures. He has been the principal investigator in large research projects on advanced materials, on non-destructive techniques for the characterization of materials, on the optimization of large lifting steel structures, and on structural identification of structures.