Recent terrorist attacks have clearly disclosed
buildings and infrastructures vulnerability to unforeseeable attacks.
State agencies, national and local governments and private authorities
responsible for the construction, operation and maintenance of transit
structures, are aware of the need to protect buildings and infrastructures
exposed to major risks. The vulnerability evaluation of Italian
resources and infrastructures in case of an explosion, and the development
of systems that reduce the effects, is of vital importance.
AMRA has assigned to this area resources and specific expertise
in order to support the efforts and satisfy the needs of Italian
public and private agencies. AMRA is currently involved in a project
in this field, regarding the structural response of a viaduct to
dynamic actions.
AMRA has also initiated collaborations with centres,
institutes, national and international agencies in order to create
synergies that will take full advantage of available resources and
bring to more successful conclusions. In fact, lack of coordination,
often leads single institutions to bear all expenses without profiting
of coherent standards, guidelines, tools or adequate solutions to
address vulnerabilities in such structures.
Moreover, AMRA can provide the wide-ranging experience
of scientific staff in the field of natural risks. This can be an
extremely useful asset as risks caused by humans and by nature have
some features in common:
- Both can be absolutely unpredictable;
- Both require immediate intervention (early warning for emergency
management);
- Both require extremely safe telecommunication and network systems;
- Both need an extensive information network;
- Both require real time damage scenarios;
- Both call for training and preparation measures for citizens.
The following modern and complex centralized networks that AMRA
is developing for Early Warning and real time application, may be
just as crucial:
- Seismic Early Warning Network in Campania
- Coastal radar network in the bay of Naples
- Tide assessment systems
These networks require the use of a large number
of transmitted signals able to operate in safe conditions. AMRA
avails itself of a long an established experience in hardware, signal
processing, real time scenarios design, and local training.
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