Claudia Cennamo

Robustness-Oriented Design of a Panel-Based Shelter System in Critical Sites

AbstractThis paper deals with the design and off-site construction of particular buildings for critical and emergency situations (e.g.,xa0natural disasters such as hurricanes, landslides, floods, and earthquakes; war sites; and desert areas), in which challenging requirements have to be fulfilled. The panel-based system of the ES-KO corporation, which is a major player in this particular market, is described from both the architectural and the engineering points of view. Beyond the classical advantages of off-site systems (e.g.,xa0lightness and ease of assembly, speed of construction, transportation, and modularity), specific capacity-design rules can provide high standards of safety durability and structural robustness. Many of these rules can be found in nature, such as exoskeletons, parallelization, redundancy, and compartmentalization. These design issues are suited to particular situations, such as settlements, strong wind, earthquakes, and explosions, because they exploit particular strategies not commo...

Optimization of Cutting Process for Ancient Masonry: The Greek Gymnasium in Naples

In 2003, an ancient Greek Gymnasium was found in Naples, Italy, during the excavation for a new underground station. The artifacts had to be cut into blocks to be temporarily removed from the site and then reallocated after the end of the work. In this article, after describing the results of the chemical analyses and mechanical tests performed on the masonry specimens extracted from the gymnasium, a model to describe the cutting process is proposed. By means of this model, the optimal relations between kinetic, static, and energy quantities have been found, which can improve the regularity of the cutting process, permitting to minimize damage on bricks and mortar. A key physical quantity — called the “cutting strength” — is introduced and calculated through back analysis, starting from the experimental data recorded on site. The values of the cutting strength can be related to the results of the compression tests by means of a scaling law obtained through a fractal approach. Finally, a model for the wear of the cutting tools, accelerated by the dry cutting conditions, is also put forward.

Issues about the Determination of a Mechanical Model for Masonry Analysis

The work aims to describe the issue of the approach related to structural problems, both for valuable and minor manufacts existing in the Italian historical town centers. The heterogeneity shown by these constructive typologies should coincide with some heterogeneity of the structural approach, but this is not always feasible, so computational processes and a strict application of the norms are often used in automatically. A representative case, as an example of the above-mentioned kinds of buildings (which are valuable, but not so much as to require a tailored intervention that takes into account the whole constructive history and the changes over the time), is shown. Ricciardelli palace (or Palazzo Ricciardelli) presents a great difficulty as to the structural intervention, but the approach used was a classical engineer approach, formulated on the basis of the new computing tools and the new constructive norms. The restoration and the consolidation of this artifact have been well conducted by technicians, but the result is an invasive intervention that doesnt respect the original structural configuration of the construction. So the paper explains and discusses some investigation methodologies, alternative to an elastic analysis, which could be used in these cases, with the awareness that they are not completely exhaustive and far far away from the determination of a general formulation for a “unique model”, which can be representative of the masonry material, as well as from a definition that catalogues all its several features.