Fabrizio Palmisano

Collapse of the Giotto Avenue building in Foggia

The case that the researchers had to analyse on behalf of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, was the initial failure that triggered the unexpected collapse of a reinforced concrete building during the night of November 11th, 1999. They also had to reconstruct the event starting from the individuation of the causes of such crumbling that is still remembered for its serious sacrifice of human lives. Together with the detailed report of the case, the paper intends to make a useful contribution to the crucial topic concerning the choice of the most appropriate method to perform this sort of autopsy, without neglecting any technical guideline.

A First Approach to Optimum Design of Cable-Supported Bridges Using Load Path Method

Born as a method to design strut-and-tie models in reinforced concrete structures, the load path method (LPM) shows its effectiveness in the easy perception of the physical behaviour of a structure, from its global behaviour to the most accurate details. In this paper, starting from the interpretation of cable-supported bridge behaviour using LPM, two different approaches are proposed for the shape optimum design of this particular type of bridges.

Rapid Diagnosis of Crack Patterns of Masonry Buildings Subjected to Landslide-Induced Settlements by Using the Load Path Method

ABSTRACT One of the main difficulties, when dealing with landslide structural vulnerability, is the diagnosis of the causes of the crack pattern. This is also due to the excessive complexity of models based on classical structural mechanics that makes them inappropriate especially when there is the necessity to perform a rapid vulnerability assessment at the territorial scale. This is why in this article a new approach for the rapid diagnosis of crack patterns of masonry buildings subjected to landslide-induced settlements is proposed. This approach is based on the Load Path Method, recently applied to the interpretation of the behavior of masonry buildings subjected to landslide-induced settlements.

Two Recent Collapses in Historical Building Aggregates: Forensic Investigations and Lessons Learned

AbstractItalian historical city centers are often composed of buildings built one adjacent to the other. This is why the present Italian technical standards introduce the concept of the building ag...

A PROCEDURE FOR THE DETAILING DESIGN OF SIMPLY SUPPORTED R.C. BRIDGE DECKS SUBJECTED TO IN-PLANE ACTIONS

Even though nowadays the Strut-and-Tie Model (STM) is widely used, several difficulties can be encountered when dealing with the choice of the model that best fits the actual configuration. This paper proposes a step-by-step procedure, based on the Strut-and-Tie Model, for the design of R.C. girder bridge decks subjected to in-plane seismic actions. The aim is to verify the reliability of the common practitioner design attitude to neglect the evaluation of the effects of seismic action on the decks of multi-girder bridges because it is thought that seismic code prescriptions in addition to ultimate limit state reinforcement dimensioning for permanent and variable load, do not justify more accurate analyses aimed to check and/or optimize reinforcement layout.