Organizers
- Michela Monaco, University of Sannio, Italy, monaco@unisannio.it
- Antonino Iannuzzo, University of Sannio, Italy, iannuzzo@unisannio.it
Since the first seminal paper by Housner in the second half of the last century, the role of rocking mechanics in civil engineering structural analysis has been central. The dynamic response and rocking stability of civil constructions have also gradually pushed the development of rocking isolation, an attractive, practical alternative for the seismic protection of tall, slender structures. However, the latter is only one of the possible applications of rocking mechanics. Indeed, rocking dynamics applies to a wide range of civil construction typologies, such as ancient temples with emblematic peristyles and sets of slender, free-standing columns with an entablature, museum and laboratory objects, and deck-abutment pounding in reinforced concrete structures. In recent years, several numerical and analytical formulations have been proposed to model flexible structures with a particular focus on the impact, the interaction of rocking with flexural modes, and the influence of deformability.
This Minisymposium aims to bring together researchers working on different fields of rocking mechanics and its fundamental theoretical and applied advances, including the interaction with the classical elastic approach to the analysis of civil structures. Techniques and experiments developed by researchers, manufacturers and practitioners and focusing on all the possible applications of rocking mechanics to civil engineering are foreseen, with a particular interest in, but not limited to:
- Bridge piles and decks;
- Archaeological remains;
- Obelisks;
- Masonry arches, triumphal arches and arch bridges;
- Standing out elements (pinnacles, parapets, battlement of fortresses);
- Out-of-plane behaviour of masonry elements, such as masonry walls poorly connected to the rest of the building, soaring portion of church façades;
- Museum objects;
- Laboratory equipment.
