
Professor Flavia De Luca
PhD(Napoli)
Expertise
Current positions
Professor of Structural and Earthquake Engineering
School of Civil, Aerospace and Design Engineering
Contact
Press and media
Many of our academics speak to the media as experts in their field of research. If you are a journalist, please contact the University’s Media and PR Team:
Research interests
Flavia De Luca is Professor of Structural and Earthquake Engineering at University of Bristol. She joined the University of Bristol in September 2014, her expertise is within the field of structural and earthquake engineering, with specific focus to Reinforced Concrete frame structures. She is part of the Earthquake and Geotechnical Engineering Research Group.
Prof De Luca achieved her PhD in Seismic Risk at University of Naples Federico II under the supervision of Prof Gaetano Manfredi with the thesis Records, capacity curve fits and reinforced concrete damage states within a Performance Based Earthquake Engineering Framework on 18th January 2012.
She continued her research as post doctoral fellow at the Department of Structures for Engineering and Architecture of University of Naples Federico II, from February 2012 to August 2014.
Her PhD and post doctoral research experience was immediately characterized by multiple collaborations with different researchers at University of Naples and from other relevant institutions in Europe.
During the PhD program, Prof. De Luca worked as a visiting PhD student at the University of Cyprus for six months (January - June 2010), collaborating with Prof. Dimitrios Vamvatsikos. This collaboration resulted in a paper on the accuracy of piecewise linear fits for nonlinear static analyses. She collaborated with Dr. Francesca Pacor and Dr. Gabriele Ameri, seismologist from the Italian Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) in Milan, within the RELUIS research programme in cooperation with Italian National Civil Protection.
Right after the discussion of her PhD thesis, Prof. De Luca was invited speaker for the Colloquia on Recent Advances in Applied Mechanics and Strength of Materials, at University of Innsbruck, in March 2012 (seminar title: Hazard analysis and ground motion: PSHA and record selection issues).
In July 2013, Prof. De Luca's expertise on seismic performances of Reinforced Concrete structures resulted in the invitation as first contributor to the chapter Seismic Vulnerability Assessment for RC Structures in the Encyclopedia of Earthquake Engineering (edited by Michael Beer, Edoardo Patelli, Ioannis Kougioumtzoglou and Siu-Kui Au, Springer.
During the research experience in Italy, from 2008 to 2014, Prof. De Luca took part to post-earthquake in-field campaigns (e.g., L'Aquila 2009) as shown by part of her publications.
Since she joined the University of Bristol (2014), Prof De Luca started to work on soil-structure interaction and integral bridges contributing to ground-breaking experimental campaigns at the Equals and SofSi laboratories at the University of Bristol.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
East Africa Seismic Risk Partnership - From hazard to Resilience for impact in communities of Malawi
Principal Investigator
Description
The proposed project is aimed at organising a one week visit to the UK of Dr Innocent Kafodya from University of Malawi. This visit will take place in January 2023.…Managing organisational unit
Department of Civil EngineeringDates
01/12/2022 to 28/02/2023
8035 GCRF GLOBAL RESEARCH TRANSLATIONAL AWARDS EP/T015462/1 - SAFER PREPARED
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
SAFER PREPARED is a UKRI funded GCRF project 2020-2021 led at University of Bristol in partnership with colleagues in Malawi.
It is part of a wider Programme on "Innovative data…Managing organisational unit
Department of Civil EngineeringDates
01/10/2019 to 31/03/2022
SAFER Seismic safety and resilience of schools in Nepal
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
This project aims at developing a comprehensive scheme for enhancing the seismic safety and resilience of school buildings in Nepal. The circle of resilience initiates from a holistic seismic hazard…Managing organisational unit
Department of Civil EngineeringDates
01/05/2017 to 30/06/2021
Cumulative damage of masonry infills caused by anthropogenic earthquakes
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
Department of Civil EngineeringDates
16/03/2017 to 15/03/2018
Thesis supervisions
Linear Time-History Analysis as EC8-compliant Design Method for Simplified Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering Assessment
Supervisors
Seismic risk assessment through non-linear time-history analysis of template buildings in Nepal
Supervisors
Spatiotemporal Seismic Hazard and Risk Assessment of Global M9.0 Megathrust Earthquake Sequences
Supervisors
Evaluation of bending fatigue life for bridge stay cables subjected to vibration
Supervisors
Publications
Recent publications
01/02/2025Incorporating soil-structure interaction into simplified numerical models for fragility analysis of RC structures
Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics
Review of Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction Models
Earthquake Resistant Design, Protection, and Performance Assessment in Earthquake Engineering
Use of Bayesian Kriging to develop new soil property maps for Quito, Ecuador
Geotechnical Engineering Challenges to Meet Current and Emerging Needs of Society