Publications related to Analytical model for the out-of-plane response of vertically spanning unreinforced masonry walls

Experimental Investigation on Size-Effect of Rubble Stone Masonry Walls Under In-Plane Horizontal Loading: Overview and Preliminary Results

Rubble stone masonry is a common construction typology of historical city centres and vernacular architecture. While past earthquakes have shown that it is one of the most vulnerable masonry construction typologies, there are few experimental campaigns giv ...

2024

The impact of different methods of increasing the intensity of compassion in engineering ethics cases

Roland John Tormey, Nihat Kotluk

Despite the growing interest in emotions in engineering education, empirical research on incorporating them into engineering ethics education is limited. Therefore, we designed this experimental study to assess how different methods for integrating compass ...

2024

Instabilities in Elastic and Magneto-Elastic Beams and Shells: from Shell Buckling to the Design of a Programmable Braille Reader

Arefeh Abbasi

In this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive investigation into structural instabilities of both elastic and magneto-elastic beams and shells, resulting in a creative proposal to design a programmable braille reader. Methodologically, we combine numerical si ...

EPFL2024

Educating Engineering Students to Address Bias and Discrimination Within Their Project Teams

Siara Ruth Isaac, Roland John Tormey, Nihat Kotluk

What training should engineering students receive to enable them to contribute to reducing bias, discrimination and the persistent lack of diversity in engineering? Collaboration is central to professional engineering work and, consequently, teamwork and g ...

2023

Energy dissipation in fiber-polymer composites adhesive joints under cyclic loading

Ghazaleh Eslami

Sustainable development has emerged as a paramount consideration in various fields of industry, including construction, to preserve the environment and its finite resources. Lightweight structures, such as fiber-polymer composite structures, address both s ...

EPFL2023

Testing and nonlinear modelling of industrialized light-frame wooden diaphragms including optimized nailing and nonstructural sheathing

Edisson Xavier Estrella Arcos

This article presents the outcomes of a large project towards the investigation of the lateral performance of full-scale industrialized light-frame wooden diaphragms. 10 full-scale diaphragms of 3.6 m by 2.4 m were tested under in-plane lateral loading (mo ...

Elsevier Sci Ltd2023

Emotional labor experienced in team-projects: A comparison of engineering and hospitality students

Roland John Tormey, Nihat Kotluk

Team projects are an integral part of the student learning experience. However, emotions can significantly affect student performance during team projects. Students use different emotion regulation strategies, such as surface-acting (emotive dissonance) an ...

2023

Contact.engineering-Create, analyze and publish digital surface twins from topography measurements across many scales

Till Junge, Abhijeet Gujrati

The optimization of surface finish to improve performance, such as adhesion, friction, wear, fatigue life, or interfacial transport, occurs largely through trial and error, despite significant advancements in the relevant science. There are three central c ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Engineering of Existing Structures: The Need and Place for Non-destructive Evaluation

Eugen Brühwiler, Numa Joy Bertola, Thomas Schumacher

Structural engineers today are still educated mainly to design new structures. This ignores the fact that structures already exist and need to be maintained. Students are thus often ill-equipped to deal with maintenance and preservation of existing structu ...

2022

Failure mechanism of fine-grained soil-structure interface for energy piles

Lyesse Laloui, Elena Ravera

The response of the soil-structure interface can significantly affect the performance of any geotechnical structure. Thermal cycles are a new factor that influence the response to all structures that have an energy function in addition to the structural on ...

2022

A mathematical theory for mass lumping and its generalization with applications to isogeometric analysis

Annalisa Buffa, Yannis Dirk Voet, Espen Sande

Explicit time integration schemes coupled with Galerkin discretizations of time-dependent partial differential equations require solving a linear system with the mass matrix at each time step. For applications in structural dynamics, the solution of the li ...

2023

Real-time model calibration with deep reinforcement learning

Olga Fink

The real-time, and accurate inference of model parameters is of great importance in many scientific and engineering disciplines that use computational models (such as a digital twin) for the analysis and prediction of complex physical processes. However, f ...

2022

Microscopic interplay of temperature and disorder of a one-dimensional elastic interface

Thierry Giamarchi, Elisabeth Agoritsas

Elastic interfaces display scale-invariant geometrical fluctuations at sufficiently large lengthscales. Their asymptotic static roughness then follows a power-law behavior, whose associated exponent provides a robust signature of the universality class to ...

2022

Seismic Design and Behavior of Steel Braced Frame Buildings with Friction Dampers as Dissipative Floor Connectors

Martina Paronesso

Field observations and comprehensive life-cycle building assessment suggest that buildings designed according to today's seismic standards meet the life-safety requirement. However, they are prone to economic losses due to repairs in the aftermath of earth ...

EPFL2022

Analytical modeling and experimental validation of rotationally actuated pinned–pinned and fixed–pinned buckled beam bistable mechanisms

Simon Nessim Henein, Etienne Frédéric Gabriel Thalmann, Loïc Benoît Tissot-Daguette, Hubert Pierre-Marie Benoît Schneegans

Buckled beams have become key building blocks in compliant mechanisms to achieve nonlinear behaviors, such as bistability, constant-force and stiffness tuning. However, designing and modeling such components is challenging due to their highly nonlinear cha ...

2022

Geometrical Treatise on the Modelling of 3D Particulate Inclusion-Matrix Microstructures with an Application to Historical Stone Masonry Walls

Mahmoud S. M. Shaqfa

As historical stone masonry structures are vulnerable and prone to damage in earthquakes, investigating their structural integrity is important to reduce injuries and casualties while preserving their historical value. Stone masonry is a composite material ...

EPFL2022

Adaptive analysis-aware defeaturing

Ondine Gabrielle Chanon, Annalisa Buffa, Rafael Vazquez Hernandez

Removing geometrical details from a complex domain is a classical operation in computer aided design for simulation and manufacturing. This procedure simplifies the meshing process, and it enables faster simulations with less memory requirements. But depen ...

2022

Tree root distribution modelling in different environmental conditions

David Andrew Barry, Paolo Perona, Massimiliano Schwarz

The ability to predict the spatial distribution of tree root system variables (e.g., the Root system Area (RA), the maximum root diameter, the number of roots in diameter classes, the density of fine roots, etc.) under different environmental conditions is ...

2022

Modelling of in-plane seismic behaviour of one-way steel or timber jack arch floors in existing buildings

Savvas Saloustros

The type of floor system has a decisive role in the seismic performance of unreinforced masonry buildings. The in-plane stiffness of the floors has to be adequately represented in the numerical modelling of existing buildings, as it can influence their sei ...

2022

Performing arts as a tool for university education during a pandemic: Moving from an in vivo to an in vitro modality

Simon Nessim Henein, Joëlle Valterio, Ramiro Tau

This paper analyses how a course on improvisation and collective creation in engineering addressed to master's students in Switzerland moved online. The course offers an experience in the field of performing arts, through embodied and situated activities, ...

2021