Imaginando estructuras. Una investigación histórica sobre las obras del ingeniero y arquitecto Enrico Castiglioni en la Italia de los años cincuenta

During the 1950s, a ‘structural tendency’ affected international modern architecture through reinforced concrete cutting-edge geometries. In the special context of Italy, while the large reinforced concrete works of structural engineering received international attention, a deep affinity between structural and architectural conception was established in Italian architecture. In this framework, the engineer and architect Enrico Castiglioni (1914-2000) developed his architectural language featured by imaginative structures in reinforced concrete. His work, widely disseminated on the international scene through the narrative of architectural journals of the 1950s and 1960s, and today is completely forgotten. This paper presents Castiglioni’s major works through an investigation in the field of history of construction.Durante la década de 1950, una “tendencia estructural” afectó a la arquitectura moderna internacional a través de las geometrías de vanguardia del hormigón armado. En el contexto especial de Italia, mientras que las grandes obras de hormigón armado de la ingeniería estructural recibieron la atención internacional, se estableció una profunda afinidad entre la concepción estructural y la arquitectónica en la arquitectura italiana. En este marco, el ingeniero y arquitecto Enrico Castiglioni (1914-2000) desarrolló su lenguaje arquitectónico caracterizado por estructuras imaginativas en hormigón armado. Su obra, ampliamente difundida en la escena internacional a través del relato de las revistas de arquitectura de los años cincuenta y sesenta, está hoy completamente olvidada. Este artículo presenta los principales trabajos de Castiglioni a través de una investigación en el campo de la historia de la construcción

Floating-bending tensile-integrity structures

This is a conceptual work about the form-finding of a hybrid tensegrity structure. The structure was obtained from the combination of arch-supported membrane systems and diamond-type tensegrity systems. By combining these two types of structures, the resulting system features the “tensile-integrity” property of cables and membrane together with what we call “floating-bending” of the arches, a term which is intended to recall the words “floating-compression” introduced by Kenneth Snelson, the father of tensegrities. Two approaches in the form-finding calculations were followed, the Matlab implementation of a simple model comprising standard constant-stress membrane/cable elements together with the so-called stick-andspring elements for the arches, and the analysis with the commercial software WinTess, used in conjunction with Rhino and Grasshopper. The case study of a T3 floatingbending tensile-integrity structure was explored, a structure that features a much larger enclosed volume in comparison to conventional tensegrity prisms. The structural design of an outdoor pavilion of 6 m in height was carried out considering ultimate and service limit states. This study shows that floating-bending structures are feasible, opening the way to the introduction of suitable analysis and optimization procedures for this type of structure

Heat transfer at nanoscale and boundary conditions

A model of nonlocal heat transfer at nanoscale in rigid bodies is considered. Depending on the relevance of the particular interaction’s mechanism between the heat carriers and the lateral walls, three different strategies for the setting-up of the boundary conditions are analyzed, and the consequent forms of the basic fields have been obtained, as well. From the physical point of view, the possible influence of those interactions on the unknown fields is pointed out. From the mathematical point of view, instead, the well-posedness of the problem is shown

Geotechnical and historical aspects on the collapse of the Tiber embankment walls in the centre of Roma (1870–1900)

This paper deals with the issues related to the construction of the Tiber’s embankment walls between years 1870–1926. The embankment walls (muraglioni) were designed by Raffaele Canevari to mitigate the effects of the river inundation in the city centre of Roma. After the flood of December 1900, several portions of the Anguillara and Alberteschi sections collapsed. The aim of this work is to investigate whether the causes of the collapse can be traced back to design approaches of the time, lacking from a point of view of the hydro-mechanical interaction of the soil in the evaluation of the total earth pressure. In particular, designed calculations are also revised accounting for more advance soil phenomena laws, based on Terzaghi effective stress and the effects of scouring and erosion. Some assumptions have been made on the mechanical characteristics of the backfill soils and on the relying on foundation materials

La forma industrial del hormigón pretensado. Una investigación histórica sobre el diseño estructural de Aldo Favini y Angelo Mangiarotti (1950-1980)

In June 1966 the little «Parrish Church of Baranzate», designed by Angelo Mangiarotti with Aldo Favini and built on the outskirts of Milan, was published in «Informes de la Construcción». Its «brillant structure» made up by precast, prestressed concrete elements, bear witness to a structural architecture that arose in Northern Italy in the aftermath of the Second World War, deeply intertwined with the building industry sector’s and industrial design’s ample development. With reinforced concrete as the reference point, the structural topic of the medium-length span – especially to face the fast reconstruction of non housing buildings – engaged a generation of structural engineers in the design of precast elements. From 50’s to 70’s, thin shell, slabs and beams, shaped by the “logic of form” or “strengthened” by prestression, dealt in finding the ideal shape (in both structural and architectural terms) to the “handmade” dimension of Italian industrialization.En junio de 1966, la «Iglesia Parroquial de Baranzate», diseñada por Angelo Mangiarotti en colaboratión con Aldo Favini y construida en los alrededores de Milán, se publicó en «Informes de la Construcción»: la «brillante estructura» del edificio, que está compuesta por elementos prefabricados de hormigón pretensado, es testigo de una arquitectura estructural que se formó, a lo largo de la Postguerra en el norte de Italia, en sinergia con el desarrollo de la industria y del diseño industrial. En el horizonte común del hormigón armado, plasmado y adiestrado por la resistencia en forma y pretensado, la estructura de luz intermedio – con respecto a la rápida reconstrucción de la edificación no residencial – vuelve a diseñarse a través de elementos prefabricados: entre los años ‘50 y ‘70, bovedas, losas, vigas se modelan en la búsqueda de la forma (estructural y arquitectónica) ideal para la dimensión «artesanal» de la industrialización italiana

Post-test simulations for the NACIE-UP benchmark by STH codes

This paper illustrates the results obtained in the last phase of the NACIE-UP benchmark activity foreseen inside the EU SESAME Project. The purpose of this research activity, performed by system thermal–hydraulic (STH) codes, is finalized to the improvement, development and validation of existing STH codes for Heavy Liquid Metal (HLM) systems. All the participants improved their modelling of the NACIE-UP facility, respect to the initial blind simulation phase, adopting the actual experimental boundary conditions and reducing as much as possible sources of uncertainty in their numerical model. Four different STH codes were employed by the participants to the benchmark to model the NACIE-UP facility, namely: CATHARE for ENEA, ATHLET for GRS, RELAP5-3D© for the “Sapienza” University of Rome and RELAP5/Mod3.3(modified) for the University of Pisa. Three reference tests foreseen in the NACIE-UP benchmark and carried out at ENEA Brasimone Research Centre were analysed from four participants. The data from the post-test analyses, performed independently by the participant using different STH codes, were compared together and with the available experimental results and critically discussed

Ab-initio calculation of all-optical time-resolved calorimetry of nanosized systems: Evidence of nanosecond-decoupling of electron and phonon temperatures

The thermal dynamics induced by ultrashort laser pulses in nanoscale systems, i.e. all-optical time-resolved nanocalorimetry is theoretically investigated from 300 to 1.5 K. We report ab-initio calculations describing the temperature dependence of the electron-phonon interactions for Cu nanodisks supported on Si. The electrons and phonons temperatures are found to decouple on the ns time scale at 10 K, which is two orders of magnitude in excess with respect to that found for standard low-temperature transport experiments. By accounting for the physics behind our results we suggest an alternative route for overhauling the present knowledge of the electron-phonon decoupling mechanism in nanoscale systems by replacing the mK temperature requirements of conventional experiments with experiments in the time-domain.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted on Physical Review B

La construcción judicial de la democracia en México. Elecciones y representación política en la argumentación constitucional 1997-2014

Se analiza el papel del poder judicial en México (de la Suprema Corte y del Tribunal Electoral) en torno a las elecciones y la representación política. A partir de la selección de casos judiciales, se presenta una discusión que muestra las contradicciones, los aciertos y las ausencias entre los argumentos de los jueces constitucionales y las principales posturas teóricas sobre la democracia

La red nacional y la integración de los mercados eléctricos españoles durante los años de entreguerras. ¿Otra oportunidad perdida?

Este artículo examina la oportunidad del tendido de una red nacional de interconexión eléctrica con anterioridad a la Guerra Civil. Estas mallas se comenzaron a tender en Francia, Suiza o Gran Bretaña durante el decenio de 1920, despertando en España un vivo interés entre los técnicos y en la propia Administración, que promovió sucesivos concursos para la información del proyecto. Sin embargo, ninguno de los planes prosperó y hubo que esperar casi medio siglo para ver concluido el cableado de la península. Aquí se describe el estado de la transmisión eléctrica en España hasta 1936 y se analizan las causas de la contención pública. Se arguye que la red no hubiera resuelto por sí sola los bajos rendimientos del sector eléctrico prebélico, en tanto ésta no representaba una alternativa a la construcción de grandes centrales dotadas de embalse, sino sólo una parte de las inversiones precisas para un eventual proyecto de electrificación a gran escala.This essay examines the opportunity of erecting a national electricity network before 1936. Regional markets were created by coordinating electricity networks in France, Switzerland and Great Britain during the twenties. In Spain, a review of technical journals indicates that this issue had become significant in the nationalistic economic policy environment of the inter-war period. The Spanish Government made several attempts at setting up a national electricity grid through public tenders. However, none of the projects succeeded and the development of an electricity-grid was left to private firms’ initiative and the network did not achieve a national coverage until the 1980s. Seen from the standpoint of the 1930s, the high investment costs the interconnection required rendered this project unfeasible. As a matter of fact, a national-grid may not have represented an alternative to dam-building in order to improve the efficiency of the Spanish electrical system.Publicad