Giovanni De Francesco (civil and environmental engineering)

Giovanni De Francesco

Assistant Professor

Structural

Email: gidefran@calpoly.edu 

Office Hours

Education

  • B.S. & M.S. in Civil Engineering, University of Catania, Italy, Jan 2009

  • Visiting Ph.D. Student, University of California, San Diego, Jul 2011 – Dec 2012 

  • Ph.D. in Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, University of Catania, Italy, Jan 2013 

  • Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Feb 2023  

Professional Registration

  • Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng), Structural, New Zealand, Aug 2020 – Present 

  • Professional Engineer (PE) in Civil Engineering, Structural, Italy, Sep 2009 – Present 

  • Structures Laboratories Research Specialist, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Oct 2021 – Sep 2023
  • Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Canterbury, New Zealand, Mar 2019 – Oct 2021 
  • Project Structural Engineer, New Zealand Consulting Engineers, New Zealand, Oct 2016 – Mar 2019 
  • Chief R&D Structural Engineer, Preesfozados y Construcciones, Guatemala, Nov 2013 – Jul 2016 
  • Freelance Civil Structural Engineer, Professional Engineering License A6073, Italy, Jan 2013 – Nov 2013 
  • Nonlinear structural Analysis 
  • Structural Dynamics   
  • Fundamentals of Design of Timber Structures  
  • Performance-Based Design of R/C Buildings
  • Self-centering & Seismic Protective Systems
  • Advanced Experimental Testing of Structures
  • Advanced Design of Multi-story Timber Buildings 
  • Advanced Experimental Testing of Structural and Non-Structural Systems
    • Design and control of hydraulic systems for dynamic testing  
    • Multi-axial testing of structural and non-structural systems
  • Low Damage Design and Retrofit of Building and Bridge Structures
    • Post-tensioned precast concrete and timber rocking systems
    • Low-damage design of assemblies of non-structural elements   
  • Performance-based & Probabilistic Seismic Design and Assessment of Structures
    • Damping mechanisms in nonlinear dynamic analysis of structures
    • P-delta effects in practice-oriented methods of analysis of structures
  • Seismic Isolation and Supplemental Energy Dissipation for Response Control
    • Design and retrofit of buildings with mid-height seismic isolation
    • Cost-effective solutions of structural control for protection of artefacts
  • Practice-oriented & Performance-based Design of Structures to Tsunami Loads
    • Deck-to-pier bridge connections for improved tsunami resilience
    • Pseudo-Static experimental testing for simulation of tsunami-actions
  •  
  • De Francesco G., Sullivan T.J. (2023). Improved estimation of P-delta effects on the response of bilinear SDOF systems. Earthquake Spectra. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/87552930221146569 
  • Dong C., De Francesco G., Sullivan T.J., Dhakal R.P., Elder T., Fryer E., Velagapudi N. (2023). Seismic protection of artefacts with adhesives and base isolation. Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, January 12, 2023. 
  • De Francesco G. (2020). Hybrid Low-Viscous-Damping Inelastic Displacement Ratios for Seismic Design and Assessment of Structures, Journal of Earthquake Engineering. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13632469.2020.1841046 
  • De Francesco G., Sullivan T.J. (2020). Formulation of Localized Damping Models for Large Displacement Analysis of Single-Degree-of-Freedom Inelastic Systems, Journal of Earthquake Engineering. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13632469.2020.1826370 
  • De Francesco G. (2019). Constant-Ductility Inelastic Displacement Ratios for Displacement-Based Seismic Design of Self-Centering Structures. Earthquake Engng Struct Dyn. 2018:1-22, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/eqe.3131 
  • De Francesco G., Sullivan T.J., Nievas C. I. (2022). Highlighting the need for multiple loading protocols in bi-directional testing. Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, 55(2), 80–94. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5459/bnzsee.55.2.80-94 
  • Buker F., Parr M., De Francesco G., Hogan L.S., Bull D.K., Elwood K.J., Liu A., Sullivan T.J. (2022). Seismic damage observations of precast hollow-core floors from two full-scale super-assembly tests. SESOC Journal, 35(1), 125-203. URL: https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.498463579535684 
  • Parr M., Buker F., De Francesco G., Hogan L.S., Bull D.K., Elwood K.J., Liu A., Sullivan T.J.(2022). Load-path and stiffness degradation of floor diaphragms in reinforced concrete buildings subjected to lateral loading – Part I: Experimental observations. SESOC Journal, 35(1), 172-203. URL: https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.498482212506942 
  • Parr M., Bull D.K., Brooke N., De Francesco G., Elwood K.J., Hogan L.S., Liu A., Sullivan T.J. (2022). Load-path and stiffness degradation of floor diaphragms in reinforced concrete buildings subjected to lateral loading – Part II: Data analysis. SESOC Journal, 35(1), 172–203. URL: https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.498500845478201   
  • De Francesco G., Sullivan T.J. (2022). P-delta effects on short-period systems subjected to earthquake excitation, Engineering Structures 254 (2022) 113642, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2021.113642 
  • Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&authuser=1&user=BhsJ2t4AAAAJ
  • Engineering New Zealand Chartered Member (CMEngNZ), 2016 – 2023 
  • The New Zealand Centre for Earthquake Resilience (QuakeCoRE), 2019 – 2021 
  • The New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE), 2020 – 2021 
  • The Structural Engineering Society of New Zealand (SESOC), 2018 – 2019