Italian Workshop on
Shell and Spatial Structures
Carlos Lázaro
President of the IASS, Universitat Politècnica de ValènciaBiography
Carlos Lázaro is an Associate Professor of Structural Mechanics at the Civil Engineering School of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain). Until 2015, he has been an active Professional Civil and Structural Engineer. He has led the design of thin concrete shells, steel spatial structures, movable structures for solar energy generation, towers and bridges, including F. Candela’s last shell in Valencia, and deployable spatial structures in collaboration with the late Prof. M. Kawaguchi.
His research interests encompass the fields of lightweight and flexible structures, bridge engineering, and computational mechanics. He has participated in research transfer projects on building thin shell structures with fibre-reinforced concrete and cable-stayed bridges with recycled concrete. His current research focuses on advanced applications of non-linear structural analysis, such as bending-active lightweight GFRP and UHPFRC footbridges, the problem of Hyperloop viaducts, the prediction of collapse, and the mitigation of wind-induced vibrations in long-span bridges.
Dr Lázaro has been the President of the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) since 2021 and received the Pioneers' Award from the Spatial Structures Centre of the University of Surrey the same year. He has authored or co-authored over 70 publications in refereed journals and conferences. He is a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of the IASS and the International Journal of Space Structures. He is currently a guest researcher at the Chair of Structural Analysis of the Technical University of Munich (2022-23).
Two lightweight structures with steel-fibre reinforced concrete
In this lecture, two different projects of lightweight structures using steel-fibre reinforced concrete will be presented.
The first project is a recreation of Felix Candela’s famous “Los Manantiales” hypar shell in Mexico: the Oceanogràfic restaurant roof (Valencia, 2000) is considered to be Candela’s last built project, and is one of the first examples of use of steel-fibre reinforced concrete in architectural shell construction. We address the challenges and the solutions to design and build the shell roof according to Candela's philosophy in a context where the knowledge of designing and building thin concrete shells was practically lost.
The second project has a very different character: it is an experimental small footbridge with a bending-active deck of ultra-high performance fibre-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC). We have explored the possibility to pre-bend slender UHPFRC members to improve the shape of the structure. The footbridge prototype follows the bending-active bow-string concept. It has a span length of 5.4 m and is composed of a thin prestressed upper slab, a deviator and lower stainless-steel tensioning cables. The prototype takes advantage of the capacity of UHPFRC to resist traction and bending with microcracking in service conditions.
We highlight the importance of understanding and learning from the works of our master predecessors, and discuss the different contexts in which we used steel fibre concrete to achieve lightweight structures.