FRANCO MASTRODDI

 
Costruzioni Aerospaziali - Aeroelasticity - Strutture Aeronautiche
 
 

• COSTRUZIONI AEROSPAZIALI A.A. 2025-2026

• 28 marzo (N.B: APPELLO STRAORDINARO solo per gli aventi diritto)
• 22 giugno 2026
• 20 luglio 2026
• 15 settembre 

• AEROELASTICITY  A.Y. 2025-2026

• March 4-th  (written test, SPECIAL EXAM CALL)
• June 5-th  (written test)
• July 2nd  (written test)
• September 4-th  (written test)

 
Written and oral tests scheduled for the course of  Aeroelasticity will be held all in presence  as established by the University:
 

• STRUTTURE AERONAUTICHE A.A. 2024-2025

• Venerdì 5 settembre  ore 8:30 AULA 37 facoltà ICI (prova scritta)

RICEVIMENTO STUDENTI - ACCADEMICO 2025-26
 
Gli studenti possono incontrare i docenti in presenza presso l'Aula didattica Pal. E il giorno
 
 Giovedi alle ore 15:00
o in remoto utilizzando il canale Teams del corso. E' gradita una email di richiesta di appuntamento
da parte degli studenti interessati scrivendo al coodocente francesco.saltari@uniroma1.it

Franco Mastroddi is Full Professor of Aerospace Structures and Structural Mechanics (Scientific Disciplinary Sector ING-IND/04) at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome. He is Chair of the Aerospace Engineering Academic Board at Sapienza University and is involved in the teaching activities of the Master’s Degree Programme in Aeronautical Engineering, with institutional responsibilities for the courses Aerospace Structures, Aircraft Structures, Aeroelasticity, and Multidisciplinary Aircraft Analysis and Design.

• In May 1989, he graduated in Aeronautical Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome, defending a thesis entitled Boundary Element Method for Aerodynamic and Aeroelastic Analysis of Wings and Rotors in Hover in the Time Domain, graduating with full marks and honours (110/110 cum laude).
• In November 1989, he obtained the professional qualification as Engineer.
• From June 1989 to May 1990, he was awarded an Aeritalia fellowship at the Aerospace Department of Sapienza University of Rome on unsteady aerodynamic loads in the transonic regime.
• From November 1990 to February 1993, he attended the 6th cycle PhD programme in Aerospace Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome, supported by a three-year doctoral fellowship.
• Since June 1992, he has served as Researcher in Aerospace Structures and Structural Mechanics at the Faculty of Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome.
• In February 1994, he successfully completed the final examination for the PhD degree with a dissertation entitled Aeroservoelasticity: Nonlinear Issues.
• Since 1 November 1998, he has been Associate Professor of Aerospace Structures and Structural Mechanics at the Faculty of Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome.
• In February 2019, he was appointed Full Professor in Competition Sector 09/A1 – Scientific Disciplinary Sector ING-IND/04 – at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome.
• From November 2019 to October 2025, he served for two consecutive terms as Chair of the Aerospace Engineering Academic Board at Sapienza University of Rome.

He is involved in research activities concerning aeroelasticity of next-generation green aircraft and launch vehicles, nonlinear dynamical systems, structural dynamics and optimization, identification and reduced-order modeling of aeroelastic and fluid–structure interaction systems, and integrated multidisciplinary optimization. He is author and co-author of papers presented at international conferences and published in journals such as Journal of Fluids and Structures, Journal of Sound and Vibration, AIAA Journal, AIAA Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, AIAA Journal of Aircraft, CEAS Aeronautical Journal, and Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, for which he also serves as reviewer and Associate Editor (Journal of Fluids and Structures).

Bibliometric Indexes
Scopus author information (retrieved in May 2026)
• Documents: 132
• Citations: 1514 total citations
• h-index: 23
• Subject Areas: Engineering, Computer Science
Google Scholar author information (retrieved in May 2026)
• Citations: 2017
• h-index: 25
• i10-index: 50

European and University Research Projects Conducted as Principal Investigator (P.I.)
2024
European Project Hydrogen Aircraft Sloshing Tank Advancement (HASTA), Grant Agreement No. 1011380, starting date September 1, 2024; project coordinator: Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain.
2022
Sapienza Coordinator of SPOKE-1 Air Mobility within the National Sustainable Mobility Center MOST (PNRR funding); national project coordinator: Politecnico di Torino; project starting date: September 2022.
2019
European H2020 Project Sloshing Wing Dynamics (SLOWD), Grant Agreement No. 815044, starting date September 1, 2019; project coordinator: AIRBUS Operations, Filton (UK).
2021
Sapienza University Research Project: Advanced Reduced-Order Methodologies for Aeroservoelasticity of Highly Flexible Aircraft and Launch Vehicles
2019
Sapienza University Research Project: Numerical and Experimental Investigations of Sloshing Effects in Tanks for Integrated Aeroelastic and Flight Dynamics Modeling of Aircraft
2017
Sapienza University Research Project: Integrated Modeling of Flight Dynamics and Aeroelasticity for Coupled Simulation and Design of Flexible Aircraft
2015
Sapienza University Research Project: Reduced Order Models (ROM) for Fluid-Structure Interactions
2014
Sapienza University Research Project: Advanced Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-Objective Optimization for the Design of Innovative Very-Light Aircraft
2010
Sapienza University Research Project: A Scaled Test-bed for the Improvement of Helicopter Safety and Comfort

Research Activities Conducted for External Institutions and Companies
During his research career, he established collaborations with institutions and companies in the field of aerospace structures and applications. Depending on the case, such collaborations took the form of research agreements/contracts, consulting activities, or third-party commissioned research. The activities carried out for external institutions and companies are summarized below.
2025
Modelling gyroscopic effects and state-space model and comparison with flight test, Vertical Aerospace Group LTD, UK.
2024
Flutter Analyses and Dynamic Response Analyses of Vertical VA-1X via State-Space Approach, Vertical Aerospace Group LTD, UK.
2023
LH2 Storage & Distribution System: Project DYNamic PENdulum, AIRBUS Operations, Filton UK.
2023
ESA STS PNRR project – Task Manager for:
• Task-9: Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Launch Vehicles
• Task-11: Structural Dynamics and Aeroelasticity Analysis
2022
PROGRAM VECEP VEGA C+ Preliminary Assessment of Aeroelastic Stability, AVIO S.p.A.
2021
Assessment of Nozzle Coupling with LV Dynamics through Multibody Code, within the framework of the TECHNICAL SUPPORT ACTIVITIES FOR VEGA-C, VEGA-E AND P-120C WORK ORDER 3, ESA ESRIN.

PhD Theses Supervised
• Structural Modeling for Aerothermoelastic Analysis and Control, Gian Mario Polli, PhD in Aerospace Engineering, 2003–2004.
• Structural Modeling for Aerothermoelastic Analysis and Control, Paola Conti Puorger, PhD in Aerospace Engineering, 2008–2009.
• Perturbation Methods and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Analysis for Nonlinear Aeroelastic Systems, Marco Eugeni, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Technology, 2012–2013.
• Multi- and Single-Objective Multidisciplinary Optimization for the Preliminary Design of Aircraft, Stefania Gemma, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Technology, 2013–2014.
• POD Approach for Aeroelastic Updating, Fabio Vetrano, double-degree PhD with Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers and Sapienza University, 2014.
• Modeling Methodologies for Nonlinear Aeroelasticity, Cristina Riso, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Engineering, 2018.
• Methodologies for Virtual Sensing Applied to Aeronautical and Ship Structures, Francesco Saltari, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Engineering, 2019.
• Experimental Data-Driven Reduced-Order Modeling of Nonlinear Vertical Sloshing for Aeroelastic Analyses, Marco Pizzoli, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Engineering, 2022.
• Integrated Aeroservoelastic Modeling for Preliminary Aircraft Design with Multi-Objective Optimization, Marta Colella, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Engineering, 2024.
• Multi-disciplinary Design and Multi-objective Optimization of Solid- and Liquid-Rocket Based Launch Vehicles, Lucandrea Mancini, PhD in Aeronautical and Space Engineering, 2024.

Master’s Degree Theses Supervised (1996–2026)
Within the institutional teaching activities carried out in Aerospace Engineering degree programmes under both the former and current Italian university systems (509 and 270), he has supervised more than 150 Master’s degree theses related to the courses taught.