not quite, close(d) for Christmas

with the distribution to students of topics for the oral exams, we are (almost) calling it a year...

2015.12.17 kg bim from Konstantinos Gkoumas

2015.12.17 kg diagrid from Konstantinos Gkoumas

3 days - some magnets and more

I spent three very intensive days in Rome this week, teaching special topics in two classes for Fire Safety Engineering and Metal Structure Design.

Together with Giulio who works for StroNGER, I also had a meeting with a group of designers for the next steps in the StroNGER piezoTsensor final design. The outcome is very encouraging and by the end of January we should have a working prototype with the final design, on time for the ESA program conclusion in March 2016.

On top of that, I got to see the Trevi Fountain, one of Italy's most-popular attractions, which was reopened in Rome on Tuesday, after a 17-month restoration.

the Trevi Fountain, reopened to public last week

brainstorming for the piezoTsensor final design

3D printer - we will need a bigger one...

adhesive magnets by 3M

adhesive magnets by 3M

Fire risk analysis of structures and infrastructures: theory and application in highway tunnels. from Franco Bontempi Org Didattica

Structural robustness: concepts and applications. from Franco Bontempi Org Didattica

Holy Saturday (at least for some…)

On the eve of Orthodox Easter, I am on my way back to Athens from the Ciampino Airport in Rome. I spend a few busy days in Rome, full of meetings and getting together with my colleagues.
Earlier today, I took part in a workshop on parametric design, I helped organize in our Faculty. It was great fun with the participation of about 30 students from the Technical University of Denmark and 15 students from the Sapienza University of Rome, who formed mixed groups. The Danish students from DTU Civil are on a 5-day visit to Rome.

Kristjan from Ramboll UK, and Salma, Kareem and Mariam from our University acted as tutors.

Hopefully I will land in Athens at around 00.30 on Holy Sunday to spend the Orthodox Easter and Easter Monday!



Workshop poster

@ the workshop



@ the workshop

@ the workshop

 

transportation/relapse - advisors/again

Today, I had the pleasure to be part of the examination committee for the Laurea Magistrale Degree in Transportation Engineering, reuniting with many of my former Professors at the Transportation Engineering Department.
Carmine Di Santo, a Transportation Engineering student I was advising together with Franco Bontempi for the last 9 months,  graduated with full marks ("110 e lode" in the Italian University System), something that translates as "summa cum laude".
Carmine's Thesis was on the risk analysis of tunnel structures for severe traffic accidents, focusing on modelling parameters, and with an application on a recent very long tunnel in southern Italy.

Laurea

 

The Cloister of the Engineering Faculty

 

The San Demetrio Tunnel (courtesy of ANAS S.p.A.)

 

 

 

 

classroom ("aula 8")

 

classroom 8

It was here that back in February 2003, I took my written examination in Structural Analysis and Design. At the end (just before the 5-hour deadline), a certain Franco Bontempi, Professor, teared all 22 pages of my hand-written calculations because I had undersized a column… I had to take the exam again three months later. Let’s say that nowadays, the ratio I tear pages he handles to me is ever increasing…
It was here that in the A.Y.'s 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, while I was a Teaching Assistant for two structural design courses, I gave lessons and overviewed projects once a week for four semesters...

Today I gave a lecture on structural robustness, focusing on steel structures (in particular, applications on the collapsed I35 Mississippi River Bridge) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-35W_Mississippi_River_bridge to students of Steel Structures, a course held by Franco Bontempi for students of the Master Degree in Structural Engineering.
http://www.slideshare.net/Kongkoumas/robustness-20-11-2014 

Collapse of the I35 Mississippi River Bridge (source: CNBC)

I hope I get the chance to give a couple more lectures for this and other courses until the end of the semester.

Sustainability

On July 11, I gave a presentation at the department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering (in the faculty of Architecture), on topics of my research (Sustainability and Energy Harvesting).
The presentation is part of a series of seminars from post-docs of the department, from an idea of Prof. Paolone (coordinator of the Ph.D. course in structural engineering), organized in collaboration with Anna Reggio (representing the Post-docs) and Omar Alshawa, and is organized with two contributions for each day. On that day, Francesco Cavalieri also gave a very interesting presentation on disaster resilience.

The seminar announcement

The seminar was an excellent occasion to obtain feedback on my research from colleagues and Professors who attended.

 

Disaster resilience @Uniroma1

Last week we hosted at the University a 2-day workshop on Disaster Resilience, a very hot topic in EU research nowadays.
Together with some of my colleagues we participated in some very interesting discussion and had the chance to present some interesting concepts.
The workshop was only the starting point for an enduring collaboration on the topic.



Me presenting at the workshop the research activities of our group

 

My colleague Stefania giving a presentation

Group picture at lunch during the first day

Visitor

Today, Dr. Baabak Ashuri from Georgia Tech College of Architecture came visit our research group at the University.
Dr. Baabak Ashuri  is director of the Georgia Tech Economics of the Sustainable Built Environment (ESBE) Lab in the School of Building Construction. He specializes in Economic Decision Analysis, Strategic Risk Management, Investment Analysis under Uncertainty, Capital Budgeting, and Project Finance.
Dr Ashuri gave a presentation on his research interests and followed one by us. Together we tried to identify common research interests and opportunities.
Afterwards, we all shared lunch at our favorite restaurant (Bottiglieria ai tre scalini), where this group photo was taken.

 

Introduction to structural optimization

Yesterday I gave an 1 hour presentation in a course for PhD students of the Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering. The 12h course, organized by Prof. Bontempi, has as an aim the introduction of optimization methods and application in a simple and appealing manner.

My presentation focused on an introduction of structural robustness, integrated with examples and applications. The presentation gave me the opportunity to present some of the research I carried out in the past with my good friends and colleagues Luisa Giuliani, Pierluigi Olmati and Francesca Brando, all of them PhDs in the Department, and all of them launched in successful International careers. The full presentation is available for download from the following link: http://www.slideshare.net/FrancoBontempi/kg-21-05-2014

ICOSSAR 2013 Conference in New York

I just came back in Rome from New York, where together with my friends and colleagues Francesco and Stefania, we attended the 11th International Conference on Structural Safety & Reliability (ICOSSAR 2013), held at the Columbia University from June 16 to 20. More information about the conference can be found at www.icossar2013.com
Francesco organized together with Prof. Barbato from the Louisiana State University and Dr. Palmeri from the Loughborough University a Mini Symposium (Performance-Based, Reliability-Based, and Risk-Based Design: Rational approaches to mitigate natural and man-made hazards) with 5 Special Sessions, gathering an impressive number (32) of high quality contributions.
In the above mentioned Mini Symposium, I co-chaired one Session (IV) and presented the papers “Damage and loss evaluation in the performance based wind engineering” and “Blast resistance assessment of a reinforced precast concrete wall under uncertainty”.






At the conference dinner held in Grand Hyatt New York, with Stefania, Donata and Francesco


Columbia Alma Mater statue