Detailed Program

The course consists of a theoretical part and a few practical sessions.
1. Theoretical part (13 hours): Least-square problems; pseudo-inverse matrix; a probabilistical framework to inverse analyses based on information theory; Bayesian approach; Kalman filtering; Minimization algorithms and heuristic strategies; Fundamentals of nonlinear finite element models; Special purpose elements for fracture and plasticity; Sensitivity analyses by Direct Differentation Methods (DDM); X-ray tomography reconstruction; displacement estimation on the basis of digital images by Galerkin Digital Image Correlation approach (2D and 3D-Volume DIC). In the theoretical part some case studies are also included, concerning engineering applications of finite element model updating to fracture problems, railway wheels, composites at different scales.
2. Practical sessions (12 hours). The novelty of the course is the presence of practical sessions: under the teacher supervision, codes for nonlinear finite elements will be developed in a Matlab environment, endowed by sensitivity analyses and identification procedures. The participants are invited to take with them their notebooks, with Matlab already installed, endowed by the Optimization toolbox.