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Andrea Franchini


PhD Student
Email: andrea.franchini.19@ucl.ac.uk 

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Andrea joined EPICentre and started his PhD in February 2020. His research aims at defining a multihazard resilience-based design approach for bridge structures, considering both natural and man-made hazards and taking into consideration the implementation of sensors.

Modern design codes implement load combinations and load factors to account for multiple hazards, which are studied independently. This procedure neglects the fact that optimal design parameters for a specific dangerous event can negatively affect the response to a different one (competing hazards).  Moreover, structures are endowed with an inherent multihazard resiliency, which results in synergies between design methodologies for different hazards. Therefore, solving the trade-off between competing hazards and consciously considering their synergies, more efficient and cheaper bridges can be designed. In addition, by studying the interaction among hazards, Andrea investigates how to exploit monitoring sensors in the structural design phase. This implies that structural design and service-life maintenance should be linked together, and that post-disaster recovery should be planned from the early stage of the project. Hence the bridge can be designed to maximize resilience, rather than limiting to a life-safety limit state.   

Andrea holds a Double MSc Degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Trento and Tongji University (同济大学). He is continuing his collaboration with these Universities by contributing to the research on Seismic Metamaterials for Industrial Facilities, which was the topic of his thesis. After his graduation, he continued his work in this field for one year as Research Assistant.

Keywords / Tags
Bridge Engineering, Multihazard design, Earthquake Engineering, Wind Engineering, Blast Engineering, Structural Health Monitoring, Seismic Metamaterials, Metafoundation

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