Current professional background:
I am a Professor of Computational Mechanics in the Dipartimento di lngegneria Civile e Ambientale (Civil and Environmental Engineering) of the Politecnico the Milano.
Field of research:
My main field is computer mechanic especially devoted to fractured mechanics which is the way you study the propagational rapture inside the bodies for static or dynamic courses, any kind of rapture. I am also interested in biological problems so I study the mechanical behaviour of the biological tissues like the eye or intestines.
Purpose of your last research visit:
We have been trying to develop a material that consists of concrete with inclusions that can absorb some of the mechanical energy. In this way, part of the vibration energy can be subtracted from the concrete which is then no longer so strongly exposed to this energy. This material could then be used, for example, under the rails of trains or under rotating machines in oil drilling.
Relation to the University of Siegen and to the local host:
I know Prof. Weinberg since 2001, when we were working on different topics at Caltech in California, sharing the same office. We quickly realised that we had many common professional interests, and so our ongoing German-Italian collaboration started.
Future projects / Activities:
I was looking for a way to model the behavior of the cornea of the eye. Prof. Weinberg had already worked on a small structure made by assembled traingles. Coincidentally, this 3D model closely resembled the sustaining structure of the cornea. So this model could be used in the future to support research on the structure of the cornea. New ideas are always forming, which may again be a starting idea for further collaboration.”
Impressions of Siegen:
In Italy, we do not get any money for our research. Our research is dependent on money from the industry. This complicates many things. For example, we can’t build machines so easily in Italy. At the University of Siegen, we have machines that can be used for experiments. In general, there is a lot of support. If we want to use the laboratory in Italy, a lot of bureaucracy is necessary, which is not the case in Germany.