Italian Workshop on 

Shell and Spatial Structures

Fernando Fraternali

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Università di Salerno

Biography

Fernando Fraternali is Professor of Structural Mechanics in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Salerno (Diciv), Italy. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Salerno, and a Ph.D. in Multiscale Mechanics from King's College London. F. Fraternali has participated as a PI or co-PI in various research projects funded by the Italian National Research Council, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Italy-USA scientific cooperation), and US research agencies. He currently serves as PI of the Research Project of National Relevance “Multiscale Innovative Materials and Structures” granted by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research for the years 2019 –2022. Most of his research work concerns multiscale modeling and simulation of solids and structures, the nonlinear dynamics of materials and structures, and the design and engineering of sustainable materials at multiple scales. 

Designing seismic isolators through lattice metamaterials

This talk deals with bio-inspired seismic isolators formed by periodic arrays of unit cells that replicate the mechanics of the human body locomotion. Such a research moves from the recent work carried out by the authors and published in Refs. 1-2, which designs a novel sliding-stretching seismic isolator (SSI), whose unit cell is composed of linkages mimicking human bones, and stretchable cables replicating muscle tendons (Fig. 1A). By replicating the SSI unit cell according to given patterns, both in the vertical direction (Fig. 1B) and in the horizontal plane (Fig. 1C), we design horizontal seismic metaisolators. Such innovative isolation systems can be manufactured in a fabrication lab using materials that are easily accessible around the world. Their development paves the way to a customizable approach to the protection of artworks, houses and essential equipment in industrialized and developing countries.

References

1. Fraternali, F., Singh, N., Amendola, A., Benzoni, G., Milton, G. W., Nonlinear Dyn, 106(4), 3147-3159 (2021), doi: 10.1007/s11071-021-06980-5.2. Fraternali, F., Singh, N., Amendola, A., Benzoni, G., & Milton, G. W., Nature 600(7887), 10 (2021), doi:10.1038/d41586-021-03506-2.

Figure 1