Alessandro Rotta Loria Wins The Deep Foundations Institute 2018 Young Professor Paper Competition
Alessandro Rotta Loria, currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, and appointed assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern, wins the 2018 Young Professor Paper Competition. His winning paper, “Performance-based Design of Energy Pile Foundations,” describes a theoretical and experimental analysis of the multi-physical behavior of energy piles, as well as a performance-based design framework for such foundations.
Research has been performed to understand the behavior and to address the geotechnical and structural design of energy piles (i.e., deep foundations that serve as structural supports and geothermal heat exchangers). Knowledge about the response of energy piles subjected to thermal and mechanical loading is accessible. However, this knowledge is fragmented, and no comprehensive performance-based design framework is currently available. The research highlights that thermal loads involve effects that can be neglected in the design of energy piles at ultimate limit states and can be considered relevant only at serviceability limit states. Therefore, the performance-based design of energy piles at ultimate limit states reduces to a conventional pile design process while the design at serviceability limit states must account for a number of proposed verifications.
About the Deep Foundations Institute (DFI): DFI (www.dfi.org) is an international association of contractors, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, academics and owners in the deep foundations industry. Our multi-disciplinary membership creates a consensus voice and a common vision for continual improvement in the planning, design and construction of deep foundations and excavations. We bring together members for networking, education, communication and collaboration. With our members, we promote the advancement of the deep foundations industry through technical committees, educational programs and conferences, publications, research, government relations and outreach. DFI has more than 3,300 members worldwide.