Presentation
Luis Oliveira Santos
Head of Unit
The Structures Department (DE) carries out R&D&I activities in the fields of structural safety and the behaviour of structures throughout their life cycle. This includes modelling structural behaviour, characterising innovative construction products and systems, assessing the safety and rehabilitation of structures, monitoring, testing and inspecting structures, seismic engineering and structural aerodynamics.
The Structures Department supports decision-making in infrastructure asset management through collaboration with public and private entities by means of inspections, tests, and studies. It also ensures national representation in the development of Structural Eurocodes, as well as the drafting of Portuguese Standards that transpose European Standards into the national normative framework.
Since 1978, the Structures Department has been responsible for publishing the Portuguese journal of structural engineering, promoting scientific and technical activity in this field. Since 2016, thanks to a partnership with APEE, GPBE, and SPES, the journal has been available in digital format and is open access.
The mission of the Structures Department is to respond to society's challenges involving the need for knowledge about structural safety and behaviour of structures under extreme loads and their vulnerability, about seismic risk assessment and aerodynamics of structures, and about the evaluation of the risk of physical and biological degradation of the wood. For this, the Department has significant experimental facilities and equipment for tests and applies advanced methodologies and instruments with support in mathematical modeling.
The Department's activity is carried out in close connection with public and private entities, namely those with responsibility for asset management of infrastructures, as well as universities, designers, construction and heritage rehabilitation companies, and producers of materials and components for construction. Particular emphasis has been placed on collaboration with PALOP engineering laboratories.
The results of the Department's activity are shared with its partners, and knowledge transfer is carried out through publications, lectures, and specialized training actions, at national and international levels.