By Miriam Chillemi

Let introduce myself

Hi everyone! Nice to meet You (insert us shaking hands in your head)!
It’s Miriam here! I am 27 y/o and currently, I live in Innsbruck, Austria. Yet, my roots are definitely further south! Indeed, I come from a warm, facing the sea, small town in the south of Italy. The golden & blue landscape of my hometown is way different from the white snowy peaks which surround Innsbruck and I admit that this combined with many other differences and Covid situation of the time made the begging of my adventure here not so easy! I am going to talk about this but first let me say what led me here!!

 On the left the see of my hometown on the right mountains in Innsbruck.

My academic path

I got my bachelor’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Catania (Italy) and then my Master’s degree in Building Engineering at the University of Palermo (still Italy). Over the course of my master’s studies, I became truly passionate about structural dynamics, structural identification and stochastic mechanics. Moreover, during writing my thesis I developed an increasing interest in scientific research; I found the challenges involved in figuring out problems which have never before been solved and overcoming issues which arose during experimental campaigns or analytical studies, to be extremely exciting and engaging. In this regard, I wanted to expand my knowledge and what better than the EC H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND doctoral programme in Dynamics of Complex Continua to do that?!

My research

So that is why I am here, at the University of Innsbruck, working with Professor Christoph Adam and his research group.
My research concerns passive vibration control systems for civil engineering applications. In particular, I am working on novel applications for a mechanical device called “inerter” which has already been successfully used in the automotive sector. Inerters are comparatively recent additions to the arsenal of civil engineers and the main purpose of my project is to study the applicability and efficiency of this device by exploring new configurations in a civil engineering context suitable for real-life applications and, consequently, finding optimized parameters to improve and expand the analytical model of the system. The ultimate goal is to construct a small-scale model as a proof of concept to experimentally validate the analytical model as this is an area which has not been extensively studied.
Let’s make it easier!
I am studying a device that so far, it has been used in Formula 1. However, this device could have a large potential also in a civil engineering context since it can be used to enlarge a mass without any physical addition. This is crazy, isn’t it?!
This mass amplification effect can allow to enhance the performance of several mass-dependent vibration control systems leading to safer structures when prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and strong wind, or simply human activity.
Have I made it clear? I hope so!

My first conference and the Covid issues

Unfortunately, I started my PhD in the early 2021 and this meant dealing with the Covid situation and the unavoidable restrictions caused by it. This inescapably affected both my social and working life.
As you can imagine, making new friends and socializing in a new country where you do not know anyone when it is even forbidden to leave home can be tricky.
My first months in Austria dealing with a winter I had never experienced and isolated like everyone else for safety reasons, were absolutely not easy. Fortunately, I was not living alone! What better place than your own home to make friends when you cannot go out?! And even better if you find the two funniest flatmates of the world! I have to admit we have never gotten bored in that house despite the austerity of period!
Anyway, the pandemic also affected my working life, especially regarding what is probably the funniest part: trips and conferences!
And so it was that the first conference I attended, the 16th international conference in Dynamical Systems Theory and Applications was nothing more than an online meeting! So sad! I completely missed the exciting part of talking in front of a public or the chance to get in touch with other researchers in my field. Nevertheless, I could still write my first conference paper! That was really cool! I still remember my panic at the beginning in front of the white page and the satisfaction at the end seeing my results so well summarized and explained. But this wouldn’t never be possible without the solid expertise of Professor Adam and the close collaboration with my supervisor Professor Thomas Furtmüller.
The paper’s title is “Assessing the effect of different configurations of inerter-based devices for structural vibration control” and it basically concerns an analytical study aimed at assessing where it is more convenient to place the inerter in order to get the best performance in structural control arrangements.
Specifically, in this study, the behaviour of the inerter and its influence on the response of vibration-prone systems are investigated by analysing different configurations in a civil engineering context, finding optimized parameters, and assessing the performance of various systems with the inerter in different positions. Indeed, the position of the device can strongly influence the benefits obtained from the structural control design.
It should be noted that the application of the inerter devices for practical purposes should require a meticulous design process aimed at considering physical constraints and fully exploiting the mechanical properties of the systems.
Some results I have found in literature, instead, may not correspond to reality and may not be suitable for practical applications. Therefore, in this paper, we wanted to give a more critical analysis in relation to previous studies on the use of inerter-based devices for vibration control, with the aim of consistently assessing these innovative systems in viable implementations.

The summer school

I want to end this post with a positive footprint so I will talk about the annual meeting with all the DOCC researchers which this year took place in the charming Obergurgl, Austria. Thanks to the outstanding organization of the DOCC staff and the merciful decreasing of the Covid infections number the conference could take place in person allowing us to finally meet up and know each other. Sharing experiences and knowledge with the others PhD students gave really a lot. Finally social activities arranged during the stay allowed me to consolidate a nice friendship with nice people I don’t hesitate to call my best friends here in Innsbruck.

Hiking throughout the Glacier