MeccPolimi introduces MESFE - Mechanical Engineering Short-term Faculty Exchange
During 2019 MeccPolimi launched MESFE - Mechanical Engineering Short-term Faculty Exchange, a project dedicated to all Faculty members of the Department, with the aim of starting new international research collaborations and consolidating those already existing with European and US universities. The professors involved, who will be able to take advantage of weekly funding and an additional fee for travel expenses, will have to plan a research stay between 2 and 6 weeks, delivering teaching or seminar activities in Master Level or PhD courses at the host site.
Among the first MeccPolimi professors who already benefited from this new opportunity Alfredo Cigada, of the Measurements and Experimental Techniques section, currently visiting the University of Miami (US). Our Department and Politecnico di Milano already have several ongoing research activities and student exchange collaborations with UM, as well as a concrete durability project, which is currently at its final stage.
In Miami, prof. Cigada has carried out an intensive course for PhD candidates, and will then follow some research projects, also related to the final presentations of the students attending the course. One is linked to the monitoring of a bridge within the campus, the second will deal with the construction of a new bridge in which the foundation piles are made up of pre-stressed concrete: fibers will provide the needed strain.
Other research projects under development with the University of Miami will be carried out in collaboration with a specific research center on the actions of the sea, in Virginia Key, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science: here, an entire department is dedicated to the study of the sea in all its forms, from biology to chemistry, from mechanical actions to natural disasters. The center has a wind tunnel coupled with a hydraulic channel for combined studies on wave and wind motion. This collaboration is of great scientific importance for our Department, and will have a significant environmental and social impact.