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Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) and Experimental Modal Analysis (EMA) have revealed to be really efficient tools for the damage detection of structures and structural elements in many engineering fields (Shock Vib. Dig. 1998; 30(2):91–105; Philos. Trans. R. Soc. A 2007; 365(1851):303–315; Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 2003; 17(1):133–142; Philos. Trans. R. Soc.: Math. Phys. Eng. Sci. 2001; 359(1778): 131–149; Struct. Control Health Monit. 2006; 14:1083–1100; Mech. Syst. Signal Process. 2004; 17(1): 83–89). Unfortunately the great variety of morphologies, construction materials and structural schemes makes these techniques not easily applicable to buildings, due to inherent problems related to the location and the extent of damage, the sensitivity of the dynamic response to damage, the choice of damage indexes to be used, the sensors' location, etc. On the other hand, the modern seismic capacity design of buildings in earthquake‐prone areas tends to locate dissipative zones in well‐determined portions of structures (CEN, European Committee for Standardization, EN 1998‐1. Eurocode 8: Design of Structures for Earthquake Resistance. Part 1: General Rules, Seismic Actions and Rules for Buildings, European Community, Brussels, Belgium, 2005); thus, the application of vibration‐based damage detection techniques to earthquake‐resistant structures seems to be very promising even if nowadays there are only few studies on these arguments. The present paper reports the experiences of a vibration‐based damage identification study applied to a steel–concrete composite frame structure, suitably designed to be high ductile according to Eurocode 8 and localizing the seismic energy dissipation in the beam‐to‐column joints. The structure was subjected to series of pseudo‐dynamic (PsD) and cyclic tests with increasing peak ground acceleration at the European Laboratory for Structural Assessment of Joint Research Centre at Ispra (VA, Italy). The damaging phenomena, caused by PsD tests, were assessed and quantified by means of a multi‐level vibration‐based approach suitably designed in order to evaluate the changes in the global dynamic structural response and to experimentally estimate the reduction in joint stiffness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Tie-rods are structural elements of crucial importance in ancient buildings to ensure structural integrity and safety, so the assessment of their effectiveness via an estimation of the axial load is of great importance. Dynamic techniques are often employed using accelerometers to measure the frequency response of the tie-rods. In this work, the frequency response of tie-rods is obtained with acoustic recording, thus introducing general-purpose microphones to potentially replace more expensive and complex sensors in this application. Two microphones were tested, one of known technical characteristics, and a second for which they were unknown. A procedure was designed to overcome the technical limitations of the latter, and two experimental campaigns were conducted to test the proposed method.

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His scientific interests range from the classical theory of elasticity to infinitesimal plasticity, contact problems, the fracture of solids and delamination phenomena, and the mechanical response of brittle materials such as masonry. He is the author of many papers published in national and international journals. From 2005 to 2009 he was Head of the