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Climate change impacts on landslides in Alpine areas using a machine learning-based approach and detection sensors
Managing climate change impacts on landslides in Alpine areas using a machine learning-based approach and detection sensors. An update on the Rockmech group's ongoing work was presented at the 4th Macao International Conference on Smart City Technologies - Powering Resilient and Sustainable Cities: Innovations in AIOT. To manage the risk associated to destructive natural events in the Alpine areas, whose occurrence is being modified by global warming, the need arises to update susceptibility maps to include climate change effects. An example of a machine learning-based approach has been shown. Based on the identified risk, EWS, such as the new cutting-edge fibre optic-based detection system Optialp, can be successfully implemented to mitigate risk and save human lives. The work prepared by Alessandra Insana, Valerio De Biagi and Amirreza Pourfatollah was presented by Marco Barla as an invited speaker at the conference.
The three days at the University of Macao were also a great opportunity to meet the researchers and PhD students working with Prof. Wan-Huan Zhou and open new opportunities for Polito-UM collaboration.
La galleria anti-ghiaccio
Oggi, su La Stampa e Il Secolo XIX, si è parlato del sistema di anti-gelo geotermico sviluppato nell'ambito del Dottorato di Ricerca di Simone De Feudis, sotto la supervisione dei Proff. Marco Barla e Alessandra Insana ed in collaborazione con Autostrade per l'Italia.
Sfruttando il calore geotermico dell'ammasso roccioso a tergo della galleria Olimpia (Alessandria), si previene la formazione di ghiaccio su una porzione della della corsia di emergenza all'esterno del fornice. A tal fine, la galleria Olimpia è stata attivata termicamente durante i lavori di rinnovo strutturale del rivestimento, risultando così un unicum al mondo nel suo genere.
Dopo aver dimostrato la bontà e la viabilità del sistema in via preliminare (https://iris.polito.it/handle/11583/2989386), i primi risultati della sperimentazione in vera grandezza sono attesi per il prossimo inverno.
The 2024 Aperitivo on the Rocks
The Rockmech team was out for an aperitivo last night to share, meet and enjoy. A very local habit lively interpreted by the today's global nature of the team which includes researchers from China, Colombia, France, Iran and, of course, Italy from North to South. So, not only martini (or vermouth, as we say here) on the rocks but also aguardiente, ayran, moutai and ...what else.
Symbolically, the 2024 group photo is taken in front of the Frejus tunnel monument in the central Piazza Statuto in Torino. It is a pyramid of large stones from the Frejus Tunnel with a Winged Genie at the top. On the various boulders of the fountain, there are also the statues of some Titans killed by the Winged Genius. Following the positivist spirit of the historical period in which the work was made, the statue would be an allegory of the victory of Reason (the Winged Genius) over brute force (the Titans), necessary to build the tunnel. Reinterpreting, it is a nice message also for the world today, thriving between cruel wars where the Reason seems lost.
The Frejus tunnel has rich connections with the research team and the Politecnico di Torino. Built in 1871 the 13,6 km tunnel to connect Torino and Italy to France, is the first tunnel under the Alps and the first in the world to see the use of mechanised systems for excavation such as the pneumatic automatic drilling machine. The pioneering efforts needed to excavate the Frejus tunnel recall the studies on deep excavations, tunnelling, brittle behaviour, and squeezing conditions which are still current topics of researchers of the team together with the current challenges in ground engineering addressing sustainability, energy and climate change.
The timeless connections between the past and the future of engineering and of the Rockmech team of the Politecnico di Torino is probably the take-home message from the nice evening.
A new approach for predicting brittle or ductile failure of rock in deep excavations - Lorenzo Milan PhD defense
Last Monday 1st of July, Lorenzo Milan completed his PhD with the discussion of his work 'A new approach for predicting brittle or ductile failure of rock in deep excavations', under the supervisors Monica Barbero and Mauro Borri Brunetto. The Evaluation Board composed by Marco Barla, Daniela Boldini, Pietro Cornetti, Leandro Alejano and Josè Muralha agreed on an excellent evaluation. Congratulations to Lorenzo by the whole Rockmech team!
XIII IAGIG - Incontro Annuale dei Giovani Ingegneri Geotecnici
Il 7 e l’8 Giugno 2024 il Politecnico di Torino ha ospitato il XIII Incontro Annuale dei Giovani Ingegneri Geotecnici (IAGIG), un’iniziativa intesa a promuovere la discussione di argomenti di Ingegneria Geotecnica in ambito accademico e professionale. L’evento è stato patrocinato dall’Associazione Geotecnica Italiana (AGI) e dal Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Edile e Geotecnica del Politecnico di Torino (DISEG).
Training School on Energy Geostructures
Maria Romana Alvi, Simone De Feudis and Alessandra Insana participated to the training school dedicated to "Energy geostructures: Overcoming barriers to their implementation", organized by COST Action FOLIAGE, that took place in Madrid from the 28 to the 30 May 2024.
The ARV 3rd Consortium Meeting in Trento
The third General Assembly of the ARV project was held in Trento on 22-24 May 2024. It was a gathering of brilliant minds, including architects, social housing associations, building engineers, communication experts and more, all united by a common goal: to build Climate Positive Circular Communities across Europe. In the photo on the left, together with the other participants, also Marco Barla, Alessandra Insana (DISEG) and Paolo Simeone (DAD) the multidisciplinary group from the Politecnico di Torino.
ELGIP meeting at the Politecnico di Torino
It was a great pleasure to host colleagues from the European Large Geotechnical Institutes Platform this last week at the Politecnico di Torino and to exchange experience and share ideas for the future of geotechnical engineering.
The intensive programme included working group meetings for the 'sustainability' and the 'energy geostructures' teams, the Board meeting and a workshop on the resilience of mountain environments.
Alessandra Insana and Amirreza Pourfatollah presented, on behalf of our research group, the status of the research on the use of fiber optics for mountain environment protection and on the adoption of a machine learning-based approach to study climate change effects on landslides.
Upscaling energy tunnels: from proof-of-concept to citywide implementation
Alessandra Insana will illustrate the research activities on energy tunnels at the DISEG seminars today.
Abstract: Shallow geothermal energy is a key low-carbon, renewable technology to mitigate climate change and answer the inexorable increase in global energy demand driven by world population growth and the pursuit of a higher quality of life. Among the ground-source heat pump systems, energy geostructures are geotechnical structures that extend the conventional structural role to the one addressing energy challenges of our century by being equipped with heat transfer pipes so that they may act as a ground heat exchanger. In this
context, this talk will unveil the research carried out and currently ongoing in the field of energy tunnels, describing the steps that led from a proof-of-concept project to large-scale implementation. Such a journey entailed and still entails several challenges, often multidisciplinary, to be dealt with. The goal is to uncover the potential of energy tunnels to produce thermal energy for conditioning of buildings, cooling of tunnel air, or de-icing of infrastructures and to emphasize the critical role of geotechnical engineers in taking full advantage of this technology.
Optialp: una fibra ottica per contrastare gli effetti delle valanghe
L'articolo dedicato alla ricerca collaborativa tra DISEG e DET sui sistemi di detection per le valanghe e le colate detritiche pubblicato sull'ultima newsletter Polito per le imprese: