The preservation of concrete dams is a key issue for researchers and practitioners in dam engineering because of the important role played by these infrastructures in the sustainability of our society. Since most of existing concrete dams were designed without considering their dynamic behaviour, monitoring their structural health is fundamental in achieving proper safety levels. Structural Health Monitoring systems based on ambient vibrations are thus crucial. However, the high computational burden related to numerical models and the numerous uncertainties affecting the results have so far prevented structural health monitoring systems for concrete dams from being developed. This study presents a framework for the dynamic structural health monitoring of concrete gravity dams in the Bayesian setting. The proposed approach has a relatively low computational burden, and detects damage and reduces uncertainties in predicting the structural behaviour of dams, thus improving the reliability of the structural health monitoring system itself. The application of the proposed procedure to an Italian concrete gravity dam demonstrates its feasibility in real cases.

An in-situ experimental testing campaign on stone masonry walls performed in the Volterra (Pisa, Italy) hospital complex is described herein. The test-site is a disused building, dated back to the early 1930s, which offered the opportunity to perform destructive and non-destructive tests with multiple purposes: the masonry mechanical characterization of a wide group of nearby similar buildings, the comparison of several testing methods applied on masonry with chaotic texture and the development of the innovative twin panel test procedure. In this context, the failure mode for panels under shear and compression forces was interpreted and, through the results obtained from different techniques (flat-jack test, drilling test, diagonal compression test and shear compression test), a safety domain shear vs. compression for the rubble masonry type was also drawn up. The cross validation of several testing methods can suggest strategies to determine shear strength, deformation properties and ductility capacity of stone masonry walls with highly irregular texture.

Experimental tests and constructive assessments are presented for a simple bamboo framed structure with innovative low-cost and low technology joints, specifically conceived for small buildings in developing countries. Two full scale one-storey bamboo frames have been designed by using the simplest joints solution among three different tested typologies. The entire building process is based on low-technology and natural materials: bamboo canes, wooden cylinders, plywood plates and canapé rods. The first full scale specimen (Unit A) is a one-storey single deck truss structure subjected to monotonic collapse test; the second full scale specimen (Unit B) is a one-storey double deck truss structure used to evaluate the construction time throughout assembling tests. The first full scale specimen showed ductility in collapse and ease in strengthening; the second one showed remarkable ease and speed in assembling structural elements. Finally several constructive solutions are suggested for the design of simple one-storey buildings; they are addressed to four purposes (housing, school, chapel, health center) by the composition of the proposed full scale bamboo frames. Ease of use and maintenance with a low level of technology contribute to application in developing countries although not exclusively.