Expertise

My main research interest and expertise include: 

• Experimental dynamics (laboratory and field tests);
• Contact mechanics, tribology and characterization of contact/friction laws;
• Friction-vibration interaction and nonlinear dynamics;
• Dynamic inverse problems, system identification and model updating.

Biography

In 2020, I took up the role of Assistant Professor in Interface Mechanics in the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at TU Delft. My academic path started at the University of Cagliari (Italy) where I obtained my MSc in Construction Engineering in 2010 and my PhD in Structural Engineering in 2014. The PhD thesis work was focused on dynamic identification and damage detection. After my PhD, I held different Post-Doctoral positions in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Cambridge (2014-2016), Imperial College London (2016) and the University of Sheffield (2017). In 2017, I moved back to Civil Engineering at TU Delft where I carried out post-doctoral research until 2020. 
Since 2021, I am actively involved in organizing Mini-Symposia on Interface Mechanics and Nonlinear Dynamics at international conferences. Between 2019 and 2021, I also served as Assistant Editor for the Journal of Sound and Vibration.

Projects

At TU Delft, projects that are worth mentioning include:

• The slip-joint offshore qualification project ( SJOQ), in which an innovative connection technology was validated, through modelling and a testing campaign, and a new vibration-assisted installation and decommissioning technique was tested.  
• The Active Product-to-Process Learning For Improving Critical Components Performance ( APRIORI) project. Within this project, I collaborate with TWD on developing models and testing techniques to characterize the friction behaviour of polymeric friction pads used for monopile seafastening used in the offshore industry.   
• Thanks to the Sectorplan funding, I also have the opportunity to work with two PhD students on two different friction-related problems: a) the control of a friction force thanks to an external vibratory load, and b) the characterization of a friction law for wood species. 

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