07 – The 8th RILEM International Conference: My First Scientific Publication
Hey
crew!
I have great news for you: I published my first scientific paper! Yep,
guys that’s amazing!
It
happened last week, during the 8th RILEM International Conference on “Mechanisms
of Cracking and Debonding in Pavements” in Nantes (7-9 June, 2016).
It
is about part of the work I did in EMPA for my Master Thesis. For this reason, I’d
like to say thanks to my ex-Supervisors Prof. Gabriel Tebaldi - who was my
Professor in Italy when I was studying at the Università degli Studi di Parma –
and Dr. Martin Arraigada, Dr. Christiane Raab and Prof. Dr. Manfred Partl - who
were supporting me during the internship.
The
title of the paper is “Influence of SAMI on the Performance
of Reinforcement Grids” and you can find it here if you want to have a
look on it.
The
paper was presented by Dr. Christiane Raab at the beginning of the afternoon
session during the first day of the Conference.
What
about the first real academic conference I participated to?
It
was an awesome experience guys! I’ve never got so many scientific inputs in one
week. To be fair it was a bit tiring, yes, but I got the possibility to share
ideas, knowledge and opinions about materials, road conditions measurements and
road transport topic in general. It was a very good training week for me.
RILEM
is an International organization founded in June 1947, with the aim to promote
scientific cooperation in the area of construction materials and structures.
RILEM
is the acronym of “Réunion Internationale des Laboratoires et Experts des
Matériaux, systèmes de construction et ouvrages” (from French) which emphasizes
the dominant focus of the organization on people and its activities covering about
70 countries worldwide.
Very
interesting keynotes lectures were performed by some of the most important
Professors in Road Pavements Materials. From Prof. A.A.A. Molenaar, to Prof. G.
Paulino, Prof. M.N. Partl and Prof. R. De Beer among many others from the most
important Universities from all over the World (you can have a look to a
detailed copy of the program here).
During
the poster session of the second day I had the possibility to talk with Prof.
Dr. Karim Chatti. Yep, crew, I already mentioned him before. Basically, Dr.
Chatti and his ex-PhD student (now Doctor of Philosophy) Dr. Imen Zaabar
treated the influence of road pavement conditions on vehicles operating costs
(with fuel consumption among many other parameters). It is almost the same
topic of mine but they used a slightly different approach. I think I already
explained you what’s the difference between my project and the previous ones.
With
Prof. Chatti we talked about data I have, about the impact that different
variables have in the problem, about my idea of data analysis and possible
issues and solutions I could find on my way. And obviously I asked for
suggestions, hints and tips about the topic. It was actually a nice dialogue
and I really hope we can continue sharing ideas in the next few months or
during future collaborations.
And
what about Nantes? What about the city? The food, etc.?
Oh
crew, believe me, Nantes it’s a beautiful city. It is in the North-West part of
France and it is located just on the Loire River. With about 900’000 habitants
it is the 6th most populated city in France and it is approximately
385km from Paris (2h and 30mins by high speed train).
Nantes
is full of gardens - in fact it received the European Green Capital award in
2013 – and modern and medieval architectures are well combined through the city.
It is not such an extended city and you can visit the majority of its
attractions just walking (public transports are anyway available and they work
pretty well). If you walk through Nantes just follow the “green line”. It is a
proper green line drawn on the ground which allows tourists and people which
loves arts and history to go around the city following a well-defined circular
path. Personally, I found it very useful and in my opinion it is a good idea for
other cities to introduce. It is much easier than following directions on a
map.
Food
and wine as well known in France are really nice. Both tasty and good looking
plates were served to us during the conference and in restaurants as well.
In
few words: it was a very nice experience. I suggest you to have a try. Les Machines de l'île? They are amazing. You have to see them at least once in your life.
Personally, I think France in general is very nice. I mean: if you are so lucky to participate to a RILEM conference
there, it’s even better.
Last
week (16/06/2016) the second TRUSS ITN meeting took place in Santander. Unfortunately,
I was not able to participate this time due to sickness. My flight was set on
14/06 from London but I was not able to make it because of high fever. Yep,
crew: so unlucky, but my colleagues told me that the meeting was a success. Actually,
I think that the other fellows will tell us how it was. In fact, as I probably
already explained to you, just changing the number “13” in the main web address
for a number between 01 and 14, you can access the other blogs. Yep, that’s
really cool!
For
example: esr13truss.blogspot.com
becomes:
esrXXtruss.blogspot.com
where XX can be 01, 02, 03, 04, …,
etc. till 14. Have a look to them in the next few weeks and we will be able to
find information about the meeting.
That’s
all for the moment crew!
Cheers
and forza Azzurri!!
www.tuttosport.com
One
more time: stay tuned!
FP13
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