Mr Ioannis Mitsos
- PhD Candidate
Contact
Location
- Cambridge, CB2 1PZ
About
Ioannis S. Mitsos is a PhD candidate at the department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge and a member of Trinity Hall. He has been a member of the Advanced structures Group since October 2009 when he started his PhD studies. In 2008 he received his B.Eng from the Department of Civil Engineering at Portsmouth University where he graduated with a First Class Honours degree and a distinction award from the Institution of Structural Engineers (IstructE). In May 2009 he received his MS with a distinctive grade from the department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University of NY where he conducted research under the supervision of Professor Christian Meyer. From 2009 to present he is conducting research under the Supervision of Dr. S.D.Guest, reader in structural mechanics and principal investigator of the advanced structures group.
Ioannis’ research interests in structural mechanics are in the field of tensegrity structures and more precisely in planar multi-modular double layer tensegrity grids. Ioannis investigates the structural behaviour of double layer tensegrity grids both from a theoretical and experimental point of view. He also investigates novel practical techniques for the construction and testing of this type of structures.
For this research Ioannis is funded by Alexander Onassis Foundation in Greece and from the Cambridge University European Trust. He is also a member of Institutions such as IstructE, ICE, ASCE, IASS, EERI, EEFIT and Cambridge Philosophical Society.
Research
Ioannis' research interest focus on the structural behaviour of lightweight space structures and more precisely on tensegrity structures.
Tensegrity structures within the CUED have been initially investigated by Professor C.R. Calladine Emeritus faculty of Structural Mechanics and and later by Professor Sergio Pellegrino and Dr. S.D.Guest Reader in Structural Mechanics.
Currently our research in tensegrity stuctures focuses on the structural mechanics of multi-modular double layer tensegrity grids. The last 18 months Ioannis has investigated the behaviour of tensegrity simplexes when packed in a planar manner and led to interesting deductions regarding their potential in the mainstream structural design.
At the moment Ioannis and Dr S.D.Guest in collaboration with Dr P.Winslow and Mr B. Martin from Expedition Engineering have undertaken an experimental project dealing with the structural behaviour of a double layer tensegrity space frame sponsored by the SNFCC.
A 25 sq. meter half-scale structural model of a solar collector double layer tensegrity space grid that was originally proposed to cover the new National Opera House in Athens, Greece is tested in the CUED structures research lab. The key purpose of the experiment is to investigate the construction sequence, and, in particular, the pre-stressing of the structure, thus, a novel pre-stressing scheme is investigated. In practice, verification of pre-stressing is important, and a practical technique for measuring prestress in the tension members in the field through vibration measurements is under investigation.
The findings of this investigation will be presented and published in the IASS Conference in September 2011 in London, UK.
Teaching and supervision
Supervisions, assistantship, marking:
Part IIA - Structural Materials and Design
Part IB - Mathematical Methods 2 - Linear Algebra
Part IA - Structural Design Course
Part IA - Structures
