Nicola Massarotti

Parthenope University of Naples | Università Parthenope · Department of Engineering

In the framework of the GeoGrid project, with the specific goal to look for shallow geothermal resources suitable to test the developed technologies, the Agnano geothermal field, a relatively unexplored sector of the eastern Campi Flegrei caldera, was investigated through a multidisciplinary geophysical, stratigraphic and hydro-chemical surveys. Su...

The global demand for clean and sustainable energy sources has significantly increased in recent years, mainly because of concerns about climate change and the finite nature of traditional fossil fuel reserves. In this context, geothermal energy has gained significant attention as a reliable and eco-friendly alternative. In particular, low enthalpy...

Abstract Purpose – In this study, the authors propose a novel digital twinning approach specifically designed for controlling transient thermal systems. The purpose of this study is to harness the combined power of deep learning (DL) and physics-based methods (PBM) to create an active virtual replica of the physical system. Design/methodology/appro...

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that food, beverage, and tobacco sector is currently responsible for about 30% of total world energy consumption and approximately the same percentage of food is wasted during its industrial transformation. Improving the sustainability of food processing is fundamental to reduc...

Thermoacoustics is a promising technology for energy conversion purposes. Among the bottlenecks limiting a large diffusion of thermoacoustic devices, there are heat exchangers, whose behaviour in oscillatory flows is rather different than those working in stationary flows. Furthermore, the classical linear acoustic theory in the frequency domain ca...

Using Ground Coupled Heat Pump (GCHP) systems in urban areas can be particularly difficult due to space or legislative constraints, other than excessive costs due to drilling. To overcome these problems, the authors proposed to use Artificial Ground Freezing (AGF) probes, used for tunnel excavation, as Ground Heat Exchangers (GHE). It is a widespre...

Background Food waste (FW) generation is a global issue that affects the environment, society, and economy. The conventional methods of FW management lead to the generation of toxic leachate and greenhouse gases, high energy consumptions, and the lack of high-value products development. Therefore, more sustainable approaches to FW treatment are nee...

Purpose – This study aims to analyse the non-linear losses of a porous media (stack) composed by parallel plates and inserted in a resonator tube in oscillatory flows by proposing numerical correlations between pressure gradient and velocity. Design/methodology/approach – The numerical correlations origin from computational fluid dynamics simulati...

This work aims to assess the effect of the operating parameters of the gasifying agent preheating temperature and equivalence ratio (ER) on the conversion of sewage sludge (SS) to syngas through gasification and combined heat and power (CHP) generation. A novel gasification model was simulated in Aspen Plus to represent a fixed-bed updraft gasifier...

In this article, an application of the macroscopic porous media approach, suitable for CFD simulations in oscillating flows, is proposed for a simplified Standing Wave Thermo-Acoustic Engine (SWTAE), composed of a hot buffer tube, a stack - where the energy conversion takes place - and the rest of the resonator. While for a Travelling Wave Thermo-A...

In thermoacoustics, stacks and regenerators are porous media where energy conversion takes place. Modelling full thermoacoustic devices with a CFD approach, in order to capture some nonlinearities, can be extremely expensive from a computational perspective compared to a standard linear approach used in the frequency domain. At the same time, macro...

The analysis of the available literature highlights that the models proposed for gasification are calibrated and validated (at a single operating condition) for only one sample of sewage sludge (SS). In the present work, a numerical model of gasification, based on a restricted chemical equilibrium approach, is developed through the software Aspen P...

In the present study, a system for Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generation from mechanically dewatered Sewage Sludge (SS) is numerically analyzed through Aspen Plus software. The proposed system is composed of three consecutive processes: drying, gasification, and energy generation through an internal combustion engine. The gasification model is c...

In this article, a comprehensive review of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based modeling approach for thermoacoustic energy conversion devices is proposed. Although thermoacoustic phenomena were discovered two centuries ago, only in recent decades have such thermoacoustic devices been spreading for energy conversion. The limited understandi...

District regeneration plans introduce demographic and land use changes that influence their energy balance, modifying electricity and heating/cooling demand. Traditional approaches see urban regeneration projects as independent processes with respect to the energy planning ones, ignoring the European Union targets to move towards the energy transit...

In this paper a macroscopic model for porous media in oscillating flow is derived for CFD applications. In non -linear modelling of thermoacoustic devices, their cores, useful for the energy conversion, cannot be, in general, modelled like a traditional porous media through friction factor and Nusselt number correlations, recovered from steady stat...

This paper presents the numerical solution of thermal field of a set of geothermal coaxial probes coupled with the surrounding soil. These probes, used for the excavation of Naples underground’s tunnels with the artificial ground freezing technique, are converted for the heat transfer fluid transport for a geothermal plant. One-dimensional energy e...

Thermoacoustics is the science which describes the energy conversion between mechanical energy, in the form of acoustic waves, and heat. This energy conversion takes place in a particular porous material, named “stack” or “regenerator”, which represents the core of these devices. In literature, convex uniform cross-section geometries, such as longi...

In recent years, thermoacoustics has been demonstrated to be potentially competitive with other energy conversion systems powered by thermal waste. However, its diffusion is still limited also because a deeper knowledge of thermoacoustic phenomena is needed, especially when the acoustic pressure is comparable with the static operating pressure. The...

Combined Heat and Power (CHP) generation from Sewage Sludge (SS) offers two simultaneous advantages: greenhouse gas emission reduction and increase of renewable energy generation as promoted by the European Union Green Deal 2021. In this work, a numerical model has been developed via Aspen Plus for the evaluation of CHP generation potentiality from...

The main operating costs of wastewater treatment plants are related to the energy consumption and the disposal of by-products. Energy recovery from sewage sludge may be a solution to face both these challenges, improving the sustainability of wastewater treatment plants and making them an example of a circular economy. In this work, the energy and...

The paper analyzes heat transfer between an oscillating compressible fluid and solid to evaluate the influence of finite thermal capacity on the heat exchanged between these media. This type of problem is often studied in porous media applications by assuming the solid to have its surface at a constant temperature. When this hypothesis fails, in th...

Artificial Ground Freezing technique is often used to build underground structures, such as urban tunnels. modeling activities are necessary to optimize the design of the freezing process. The paper introduces a numerical solution of the phenomenon of water freezing for various soil types, using the finite element method combined with the model ord...

In operating rooms (OR), the transport of Colony-Forming Units (CFU) can generate surgical site infections in patients and, as a consequence, CFU must be properly evacuated from the surgical site. Moreover, fine particles (FP) and ultrafine particles (UFP) can be generated during surgeries by cutting and cauterizing surgical tools, with consequent...

In this paper, the proper generalized decomposition (PGD) is presented for the solution of the parametric heat equation for an actual geothermal application. The physical domain is composed by ten geothermal probes inserted in the ground. The temperature profile along the probes is imposed as a parametric Dirichlet condition. The soil properties ar...

The new standards on energy saving for new and existing buildings have animated both researchers and technicians in recent years, aiming at reducing the dependence on fossil fuels, improving indoor comfort, and systems efficiency. In this scenario, special attention must be paid to historical buildings that need to preserve their key testimonial he...

Hospital Operating Rooms (ORs) are working spaces which demand an utmost clean air environment for enhancing both the safety and the comfort conditions of medical staff and patients, in order to reduce the risk of post-operative complications. In this context, an integrated experimental-numerical study has been carried out in the present work, to i...

A numerical model of the solid/liquid phase change problem in porous media and free fluids is presented in this paper for the first time by employing a modified version of the generalized porous medium model, in 2D and 3D, solved by means of the Characteristic-Based-Split (CBS) scheme. The proposed procedure is based on the solution of one set of e...

The highest economic and environmental costs of wastewater treatment plants are related to waste disposal, which is mainly sludge disposal, and energy supply. Such challenges are even more critical in islands, where there are many environmental, landscape, and geographical constraints that make the use of conventional technologies difficult. For th...

Air velocity and temperature distributions inside operating rooms (ORs) play a crucial role to reduce the risk of infections and to ensure adequate comfort conditions for patient and medical staff. In this work, the authors have developed a three-dimensional thermo-fluid dynamic model to simulate airflow and thermal comfort in an actual OR equipped...

The main operating costs of wastewater treatment plants are related to the energy consumption and the disposal of by-products. Energy recovery from sewage sludge may be a solution to face both these challenges, improving the sustainability of wastewater treatment plants and making them an example of a circular economy. In this work, the energy ana...

The valorization of residual biomass plays today a decisive role in the concept of "circular economy", according to which each waste material must be reused to its maximum extent. The collection and energy valorization at the local level of biomass from forest management practices and wildfire prevention cutting can be settled in protected areas to...

In this paper the authors present a simplified 0D-3D approach for modelling operating conditions of a waste-to-energy plant This innovative methodology combines a 0D lumped parameters model, able to describe the processes of solid and gaseous combustion and the heat transfer within the first radiant channel, with a detailed 3D CFD simulation of the...

Domestic Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWT) are able to operate also when the wind speed is low and can be installed in the open spaces of housing areas. The Darrieus turbine is the most promising since it is characterized by higher efficiency, even if for applications at higher wind speeds with respect to Savonius VAWTs. Several researchers try to...

The present study numerically and experimentally investigates, for the first time in the literature, the thermo-fluid dynamics and ultrafine particle (UFP) concentration in surgical smoke, with diameters smaller than 100 nm, inside an actual operating room (OR) equipped with a turbulent circular diffuser system. The velocity values and temperature...

Waste vegetable oil is generated from different sources, such as domestic, commercial and industrial activities, and it requires proper management. Due to the increase in the generation of waste vegetable oil, concern for its management has intensified. The most common management option for waste vegetable oil is the conversion into biodiesel, whic...

An artificial ground freezing (AGF) technique in the horizontal direction has been employed in Naples (Italy), in order to ensure the stability and waterproofing of soil during the excavation of two tunnels in a real underground station. The artificial freezing technique consists of letting a coolant fluid, with a temperature lower than the surroun...

In this study, the sustainability of low-temperature geothermal field exploitation in a carbonate reservoir near Mondragone (CE), Southern Italy, is analyzed. The Mondragone geothermal field has been extensively studied through the research project VIGOR (Valutazione del potenzIale Geotermico delle RegiOni della convergenza). From seismic, geo-elec...

The paper presents the energy, exergy and economic analyses of a geothermal energy system for wastewater and sludge treatment. To the best of authors’ knowledge, the exergy analysis of sludge thermal drying is carried out here for the first time. The analysis is carried out for the case study of a district of a small island of Southern Italy. The...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to carry out a hydrodynamic and thermal analysis of turbulent forced-convection flows of pure water, pure ethylene glycol and water-ethylene glycol mixture, as base fluids dispersed by Al 2 O 3 nano-sized solid particles, through a constant temperature-surfaced rectangular cross-section channel with detached and...

In the innovative context of smart cities, new mobility concepts are needed the combines high performance, eco-friendly energy and human safety. In this study, an experimental analysis is made on an electric bike prototype equipped with a new hybrid power unit. Numerical simulations and actual measurements demonstrate the remarkable performance of...

Electrification of transport (electro-mobility) is considered an essential strategy to meet Europe's climate and energy challenges. Nonetheless, within the future perspective of living in smart cities, the interaction between electro-mobility devices and the surrounding environment, including humans, needs to be further investigated. In this study,...

According to the national Energy strategy elaborated in 2017, the biomass sector has got one of the most important strategic roles in energy renewables policy. Planning a specific and clear estimation of this resource for energy purposes, it’s crucial for authorities, entrepreneurs and industrial groups who want to invest in this sector. Biomass is...

Objective of the work is to investigate stress and deformation that corneal tissue and donor graft undergo during endothelial keratoplasty. In order to attach the donor graft to the cornea, different air bubble pressure profiles acting on the graft are considered. This study is carried out by employing a three-dimensional nonlinear finite element m...

Wastewater treatment is one of the most energy-consuming processes in the water sector, requiring both electric and thermal energy. In order to improve their sustainability, renewable energy sources can supply such energy demands in wastewater treatment plants, especially in small islands, where the lack of connections with mainland and environment...

The valorization of residual biomass plays a decisive role in the actual implementation of the concept of "circular economy", according to which each waste material must be reused at its highest level in order to reduce the impact of human activities on the biosphere. The Italian project "INNOVARE-Innovative plants for distributed poly-generation b...

The authors would like to add some corrections to the published paper “An integrated system for sewage sludge drying through solar energy and a combined heat and power unit fuelled by biogas”, Energy Conversion and Management, Volume 171, 1 September 2018, Pages 587-603. The corrections provided here do not affect main findings and conclusions of t...

This paper presents a new methodology that allows to define a 100% renewable smart energy system in asustainable manner. The authors integrate the EnergyPlan with a mathematical model that analyzes theenergy system from an exergetic point of view taking into account the exergy of the whole energy systemand its components. Once multiple scenarios ar...

Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems must be specifically designed for Operating theaters in hospitals, in order to reduce the risk of infections and maintain adequate thermo-hygrometric conditions. New design procedures of operating theaters can benefit from the results obtained by properly validated Computational Fluid Dynamic...

Campania Region has one of the highest Renewable Energy potential in Italy. This is confirmed by almost reached targets that the European Commission and the Italian Burden sharing have settled for the regional government. Despite this high potential, the lack of an integrated strategy between the Regional and Municipal governments allowed entrepren...

Campania Region has one of the highest Renewable Energy potential in Italy. This is confirmed by almost reached targets that the European Commission and the Italian Burden sharing have settled for the regional government. Despite this high potential, the lack of an integrated strategy between the Regional and Municipal governments allowed entrepren...

This paper experiences the potential of the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a strategy to facilitate the energy performance analysis of existing buildings. In Italy, the relationship between BIM and sustainability is an emerging concept which is becoming more and more interesting in the construction industry. The literature provides...

This paper experiences the potential of the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a strategy to facilitate the energy performance analysis of existing buildings. In Italy, the relationship between BIM and sustainability is an emerging concept which is becoming more and more interesting in the construction industry. The literature provides...

This paper experiences the potential of the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) as a strategy to facilitate the design of mechanical plant. In Italy, the relationship between BIM and sustainability is an emerging concept which is becoming more and more interesting in the construction industry. In this paper, the authors show the geothermal e...

Wastewater treatment has been recognized to be one of the most energy-intensive processes in the water sector. Several processes, required for wastewater purification, present a high electricity demand, whereas drying for sludge processing is characterized by a high thermal demand. To supply such energy demands, the use of renewable energy sources...

The present paper describes an experimental characterisation of a biomass powered micro-cogeneration system based on the coupling between a gasifier and an internal combustion engine. The ECO 20 unit is sized to deliver a maximum electrical and thermal power of 20 kW e and 40 kW th , respectively. In order to highlight possible inefficiencies along...

The main challenges of wastewater treatment plants are high-energy demand and sludge disposal. A hybrid system for sewage sludge drying is proposed in this work to face both these issues. The developed layout is based on the integration of two renewable energy sources, biogas from anaerobic digestion of sludge and solar energy in order to increase...

The present work analyses the performance of four glaucoma drainage devices, by means of a novel patient‐oriented numerical procedure. The procedure is based on the three‐dimensional geometry reconstruction from the stacks of tomographic images of a human eye, at different angles, on meshing and on thermo‐fluid dynamics modelling activities, carrie...

Waste management and energy production are becoming critical issues in geographically disadvantaged areas, like small islands. For waste disposal the most common strategy is shipping to the mainland, due to the scarcity of land and local suitable treatments. Electricity generation is based on the importation of fossil fuels for local production, du...

Geothermal energy plants allow both heating and cooling of buildings by using the ground as a renewable energy source. The present work shows the numerical results obtained for the recovery of the freezing probes used for the Artificial Ground Freezing (AGF) technique of the two tunnels between Line 1 and Line 6 of the new Metro station in Piazza M...

A numerical investigation of electro-osmotic flow in water saturated porous media is presented. The aim of the work is to analyse the effectiveness of using electro-osmosis to drive flow through water saturated porous media. Electro-osmotic flow is studied by using two sets of equations, one for the reproduction of the electro-kinetic forces, and t...

Wastewater treatment is a high energy consuming process, and its energy demand is considerably increasing due to the introduction of more restrictive standards on the quality of water effluents, that require advanced technologies for pollutant removal. Energy audits are carried out in order to improve energy efficiency of wastewater treatment plant...

Thermo active piles have been studied as an efficient solution to minimize greenhouse emissions and achieve economic advantages. So far, this technology has received only partial acceptance by the industry, because of the impact on the serviceability of the system in the long-term. The aim of this work is to perform a tool able to numerically inves...

Artificial ground freezing (AGF) in a horizontal direction has been employed in Napoli (Italy) to ensure stability and waterproofing of the soil during excavation of tunnels connecting two lines of the Naples metro system. The artificial freezing technique consists in circulating a coolant fluid, with a temperature lower than that of the surroundin...

The present work describes the application of the generalised porous medium model to study heat and fluid flow in healthy and glaucomatous eyes of different subject specimens, considering the presence of ocular cavities and porous tissues. The 2D computational model, implemented into the open-source software OpenFOAM, has been verified against benc...

The aim of this paper is to present a novel device for heating the infusion fluids during vitrectomy surgery, to be used to avoid deep hypothermal conditions inside human eyes. The key aspect of the proposed device concerns its ability to control the temperature of infusion fluids and keep it within the mild hypothermia range, in order to reduce th...

Taken from: A new model for the analysis of operating conditions of microcogenerative SOFC units, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 38, 336-344, 2013 (F. Arpino, M. Dell'Isola, D. Maugeri, N. Massarotti, A. Mauro). The dashed lines that connect the different subsystems in the Figure represent the fuel and air paths relative to the system s...

In this paper, the authors present an optimization analysis aimed to evaluate the switching process from an individual heating to a district heating strategy for the city of Pompeii. The new energy system proposed utilizes PV panels, solar thermal panels and cogeneration plants to produce electric and thermal energy to supply the district heating,...

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within the European Community and reduce its dependence on energy imports, the European Directive 2009/28/EC requires that 20% of the energy consumed must be renewable (RES) by 2020. Italy will have to ensure the 17 % of energy from renewable sources in gross final consumption of energy by 2020. The Itali...

Micro Combined Heat and Power (mCHP) fuelled with biomass is an emerging technology with the potential to provide energy efficiency and environmental benefits by reducing primary energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions, as well as comply with social aims for increased decentralization of energy supply in rural areas. This paper d...

In this study consideration has been given to the two-dimensional, unsteady, laminar flow of an electrically conducting bio-fluid (blood) in a rectangular channel. In this model both magnetization and electrical conductivity of blood are taken into account. The viscosity of the fluid is also assumed to be a strong function of temperature. The coupl...

This paper provides a sensitivity analysis on the influence of one porous layer insert on the transient behavior of natural convection in a tall annular enclosure in presence of large source terms. The porous medium which partially fills the cavity is characterized by a low value of the Darcy number, typical of insulating materials and metallic foa...

A numerical investigation of heat and fluid flow in electro-osmotically driven systems is presented, by considering plain channels and channels packed with charged solid particles. The results show that the introduction of charged solid particles a_ects the internal potential distribution, fluid flow and temperature distribution in the channel. Und...

Rheological behavior of silicone oils,(CH3)3SiO−[Si(CH3)2O]n−Si(CH3)3, and their mixtures is studied. Shear stress measurements, in the temperature range 293-313 K, reveal that this family of polymers are shear thinning liquids with a yield stress below which no flow occurs. Experimental diagrams, i.e. shear stress versus shear rate, are satisfacto...

This paper presents an economic and energy feasibility analysis of a renewable energy system for a small city in southern Italy to convert it to zero greenhouse gas city by 2030. The proposed energy infrastructure utilises different technologies: wind turbine, photovoltaic panels and biogas cogeneration plants to produce electric energy, and therma...

Geothermal energy piles allow both heating and cooling of buildings by using the ground as a renewable energy source. In this paper, the authors propose an efficient numerical model, based on a mixed 1D-3D approach, to analyze the heat transfer process in the coupled system probe-pile-ground. The numerical model developed allows to simulate the thr...

Fig. 1: Cross sections of the tunnel and details of the heat exchanger. [1] Colombo G., Il congelamento artificiale del terreno negli scavi della metropolitana di Napoli: valutazioni teoriche e risultati sperimentali, Rivista italiana di geotecnica.

Direct use of Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) as fuel is very attractive to reduce fossil fuels utilization and increase sustainability. WVO incorrect disposal causes serious damages to sewage systems and wastewater treatment plants. Moreover, if WVO reaches natural ecosystems, such as rivers, aquifers or subsoil, the environmental consequences can be se...

Biomass gasification for the release of a syngas and its use in combined heat and power (CHP) generation systems are attracting realities in the European market, due to the perspective to provide energy to remote districts by using local renewable sources, as residuals of forest practices or agro-food industries. The syngas produced from biomass ga...

In this paper the influence of obstructions on micro-channel electroosmotic flow is investigated for the first time. To carry out such a study, regular obstructions are introduced into micro-channels and flow rates are numerically calculated. The effect of channel width on flow rates is analysed on both free and obstructed channels. The solid mater...

Purpose: This paper aims to provide a comprehensive literature review on modelling electro-osmotic flow in porous media. Design/methodology/approach: Modelling electro-osmosis in fluid systems without solid particles has been firstly introduced. Then, after a brief description of the existing approaches for porous media modelling, EOF in porous med...