Prof. Ettore Antona
Some Significant Achievements
The following is an (incomplete) overview of significant achievements:
- A structural component, if dragged by the surrounding
elements, can have transformations, often ignored in the literature, giving rise
to behaviours with important implications. For example, a rectangular panel can
have critical limits at the edge of the triangle obtained by the diagonal, (12),
(17),
(21),
(24),
(26),
(34).
- Linearised analyses of stability limits, as well as
approaches which do not take into account initial imperfections of materials,
can have serious limitations, (10),
(23),
(31).
- Perturbation methods in linearised analyses allow
obtaining critical loads from vibration patterns, and viceversa, thus solving
also cases of multiple eingenvalues, (32),
(41),
(73).
- Continuum dynamics with time dependent boundary location can be addressed by tracing back to the propagational nature of dynamics
itself. Boundary conditions may have Doppler effects.
- In elementary terms, the propagational nature of
unidimensional dynamic phenomena is already embedded in prostapheresis formuals.
In a bidimensional context, this issue has been addressed through a synthesis
of closed-form results and discretised analysis, (57),
(58),
(62),
(63),
(64),
(66),
(95),
(96),
(100).
- At a logico-methodological level, mathematical models for
the solution of problems in their phenomenological aspects share the same nature
of axiomatic models lying the foundations of subfields of mathematics (e.g.,
geometry). Therefore, they are affected by the completeness-coherence tradeoff,
giving rise to issues of approximation and applicability.
Cicala's asymptotic approaches acquire particular importance in such
context, (78),
(84),
(99).
- Uncertainty, as a concept derived from communication
theory and substantially equivalent to entropy, can be assumed, through the
principle of maximum uncertainty, as the central backbone of statistical
inference. This allows achieving approaches to statistic data elaboration that
are more powerful and sophisticated than Bayes-style corrections, which
currently dominate in the literature, (87),
(90).
- It is possible to achieve probabilistic quantification of
security (and in particular of structural security), normally obtained by
applying deterministic criteria to probabilistic values, by using instead
results stemming from the application of the principle of maximum uncertainty, (71),
(87),
(90),
(97),
(103).
- The investigation of problems related to the design of
space vehicles at relativistic speeds has led to the the formulation of a
principle of "invariance of engineering criticalities in restricted relativity"
which allows full exploitation of experimental results on the behaviour of
materials in a relativistic environment, (114),
(115).
- The problem of realising simulation-based or model-based
tests has been investigated in depth through a comparison of the underlying
principles, (120),
(122).
- A personal view of scientific reaserch advancement,
conceived as a generalisation of logical processes and methdological approaches
proposed by distinguished collegues at Politecnico di Torino, has been presented
in a PhD-level course, (123).