Organization chart

SIGMALab staff work inside the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
Prof. M. Giglio, Prof. A. Manes, C. Sbarufatti, F. Cadini, are the core research team of SIGMALab. They coordinate and carry on the research activities togheter with Master, Ph.D. students and post Doc.
If you want to work with us contact Prof. M. Giglio for a Master Thesis or a Ph.D. application.

CORE TEAM

MARCO GIGLIO: Full Professor
Team Director and chief Manager; Head of Energy R.P. Deputy Director of Dept Mech Eng, Politecnico di Milano 2017-2019. Main research fields are: Structural integrity evaluation of complex platforms by means of Structural Health Monitoring methodologies; Vulnerability assessment of ballistic impact damage on components and structures, in mechanical and aeronautical fields; Calibration of constitutive laws for metallic materials; Expected fatigue life and crack propagation behaviour on aircraft structures and components; Fatigue design with defects. Coordinator of the following European projects (European Defence Agency): HECTOR, Helicopter Fuselage Crack Monitoring and prognosis through on-board sensor, 2009-2011, ASTYANAX, Aircraft fuselage crack Monitoring System and Prognosis through eXpert on-board sensor networks, 2012-2015, and SAMAS, SHM application to Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems, 2018-2020, project leader of the Italian Ministry of Defence project in the National Plan of Military Research, SUMO Development of a predictive model for the ballistic impact, 2011-2012 and, SUMO 2 Development of an analytical, numerical and experimental methodology for design of ballistic multilayer protections, 2017-2019. He has published more than 210 papers, h-index 27 (source Scopus) in referred international journals and congresses.

Ph.D. ANDREA MANES: Associate Professor
Team Scientific Manager; Head of Structural integrity under extreme load R.P.  He is involved in both higher education and research. Main research topics are in the field of structural engineering, machine design and mechanical behaviour of materials, with focus on extreme loading conditions and vulnerability. He has direct expertise in testing and modelling components and complex systems made by metals, composites (including nano-composites)  and ceramics (including glass). He has actively participated to several EU, EDA (European Defence Agency), National, and industrial projects. He has published more than 160 papers, h-index 24 (source Scopus) in referred international journals and congresses. See  relevant papers in Scopus webpage. Since 2019, He is member of the Editorial Advisory Board of International Journal of Impact Engineering.

Ph.D. CLAUDIO SBARUFATTI: Associate Professor
Head of Structural Health Monitoring and prognosis R.P. His research interests include model-based diagnosis and prognosis of mechanical and aerospace components, Monte-Carlo methods for Bayesian model updating, inverse problems for load monitoring and diagnosis, inverse FEM, distributed sensing, active and passive impact identification on composite structures, multifunctional materials with self-sensing and self-heating properties. He is currently involved in the management of international projects in the framework of the European Defence Agency and mainly focused on structural health monitoring, load monitoring and residual life prognosis.

Ph.D. FRANCESCO CADINI: Associate Professor
Head of Reliability and statistical approaches for structural integrity R.P. His research interests include the quantitative treatment of uncertainties for risk assessment and mitigation in mechanical, aerospace and structural systems. His activities are mainly focused on i) diagnostic and prognostic (structural health monitoring -SHM and prognostics and health management - PHM) and ii) rare-event structural reliability analysis, robust design optimization (RDO) and reliability-based design optimization (RBDO). The main algorithmic tools employed and/or developed are: i) stochastic filtering (sequential Monte Carlo algorithms - particle filters - Kalman filters, etc.) for state estimation, ii) efficient Monte Carlo sampling of rare events (variance reduction methods), iii) machine learning (neural networks, deep learning, kriging, support vector machines, etc.) for classification, regression, model identification and time series prediction and iv) advanced optimization tools (e.g., evolutionary algorithms).

Ph.D. STUDENT AND RESEARCH FELLOW

MS.c. DAYOU MA: Research Felow, RTDa
His main interests are investigating the mechanical property and multifunctional potentiality of materials. He is currently working on the simulation of (nano)composites under dynamic loading conditions and fracture behaviours of polymer materials. Besides, the multifunctional application of nanocomposites (special attention to CNTs) can never fail to arouse his curiosity.

MS.c. ALVARO GONZALEZ-JIMENEZ: Ph.D. Student
His research activity concentrates mainly on the numerical simulation of extreme loads events on composite structures. Particularly, he is focused on material models used for low velocity impacts although he has also work on high velocity and quasi-static punch shear cases.

MS.c. MOHAMMAD REZASEFAT BALASBANEH: Ph.D. Student
The focus of his research is the mechanical behaviour of materials under extreme loading conditions, especially the behaviour of composite, metallic, and hybrid structures for impact application. He is involved in the constitutive modelling and testing of Carbon Fibre Polymer composites subjected to low velocity, high velocity, and repeated impacts in order to assess the impact damage in composites structures. He is also working on the d esign and build of the compression Split-Hopkinson pressure bar apparatus in Polimi.

MS.c. LUCA LOMAZZI: Ph.D. Student
After a bachelor degree in Engineering Physics, he graduated with full marks cum laude in Aeronautical Engineering in 2020 with the master thesis, Vulnerability assessment to impulsive loadings: analytical software development and numerical simulations. He works on advanced approaches for the assessment and reliability of structures and systems subjected to extreme loads, such as high-speed impacts and blast loads. He joint the SIGMALab Team on 1ST May 2020.

MS.c. DANIELE OBOE: Ph.D. Student
His career started at the technical institute and with the won of a national competition in mechanical design. The following degree in Mechanical Engineering gave him the right mix of theoretical knowledge, with also a more technical view to practical problems from the previous studies. He is currently devoting his research activity on Structural Health Monitoring systems and inverse FEM (iFEM), in particular in the European project PATCHBOND II.

MS.c. TIAN-ZHI LI: Ph.D. Student - Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow
He obtained the master degree from Department of Civil Engineering at Chongqing University (Chongqing, China) in 2019. In June 2020, he was involved in a Marie Curie project (ENHAnCE) and joined SIGMALab team. His main research interests are structural health monitoring, fault diagnosis and prognosis, system identification, and particle filter.

MS.c.ALESSANDRO VESCOVINI: Ph.D. Student
Alessandro graduated in 2018 in Materials Engineering and Nanotechnology at Politecnico di Milano. His master thesis, Experimental and numerical characterization of carbon fibre reinforce polymer, was carried out in the SIGMALab, where he contributed to the SAMAS project. After working in the industry, he enrolled Mechanical Engineering PhD program in November 2020. His research area focuses on defining innovative predictive methods for modelling the behaviour of multifunctional composites structure, especially when subjected to impact loading.

MS.c.DARIO POLONI: Ph.D. Student
Following his bachelor degree in Aerospace Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Dario enrolled in a Double-Degree program in Aeronautical Engineering at Polimi and KTH, graduating in 2020. His master thesis focused on the Load Monitoring of a UAV stabilizer through a Calibration Matrix approach, contributing to the SAMAS project in SIGMALab. Currently his main area of research concerns statistical methods for Load Monitoring & iFEM.

MS.c.MARC PARZIALE: Ph.D. Student
He obtained his master degree in mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Torino in 2020, with a focus on mechanical design where he found a deep interest for vibration and structural mechanics. Developing his master thesis with both Turin and Milan polytechnics, he started his research path, now devoted on the usage of deep learning approaches for smart identification and predictions of engineering systems, with a particular attention on Structural Health Monitoring.

MS.c.DAVIDE GIULIANO: Ph.D. Student
Davide interest in the mechanics topic goes back several years, when he enrolled at the technical institute Leonardo da Vinci in Borgomanero (NO, Italy). Later, he pursued his studies in Politecnico di Milano (MI, Italy) where he obtained both the bachelor and the master degree in 2019 and 2021, respectively. His master thesis focused on the application of numerical techniques to study the response of composite structures subjected to blast loading. Since 2022 he is a PhD student in SIGMALab and his research area focuses on the design approach to structures under extreme loading conditions.

MS.c.SHIVA REZAEI: Ph.D. Student
She started her PhD in November 2021 in Politecnico di Milano, Department of mechanical engineering. Her main research interests are Damage characterization and Damage identification in composite structures. She is currently working on the investigation of the mechanical behavior and monitoring techniques for hydrogen pressure vessels when subjected to extreme loading conditions.

MS.c.XUAN ZHOU: Ph.D. Student
He is currently pursuing his double Ph.D. at Politecnico di Milano, Department of Mechanical engineering from September 2021 as the second half of his Ph.D. career, while the first half was at Beihang University. His main research interests are the key technologies of the airframe digital twin, including real-time reduced-order modeling, multidisciplinary co-simulation, data fusion of SHM and simulation, etc. He is currently working on the construction of a structural digital twin of a UAV using advanced simulation and machine learning tools.

MS.c.YIQI JIA : Ph.D. Student
Yiqi graduated from Wuhan University of Technology for bachelor’s degree in China and then obtained her master’s degree in 2018 in Automotive Engineering at University of Bath in UK. After being a vehicle engineer for nearly 3 years, she becomes a PhD student in mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Milano from Nov, 2021. H er research mainly focuses on the diagnosis and prognosis of Lithium-ion battery, structural batteries and, more generally, to mechanical/structural/related behaviors, including battery modelling simulation and data-based estimation methods for battery optimal management.