Luca Casamassima

Researching district heating and cooling for future Positive Energy District (PED).

I was in charge of the technical office. Here I managed public tendering, but also quality control, thermal design and machines sizing. My role was to not only to insure proper technical design, but also to ensure proper executions during works on the building sites. Other roles included programming, PLC and building automation.

My aim was to develop an energy model to analyse the heating demand of a certain area to reduce fuel poverty. The model is based on several statistical data and scientific publications. Weather data, GIS, population, amount of households, typology, etc. Part of the study involved the calculation of heating costs for that specific area and per heating methodology. Final costs for heating demand were evaluated. The obtained results were used to properly size storage tanks and distribution grid.

As an energy engineer my task was to perform a feasibility study of an upgrading unit to be employed together with a biogas production unit. The digester employs wastes from one household to produce gas. The first step was to research the subject using peer-reviewed studies and publication by energy authorities. The current state of the art and possible novelty technologies were studied. Given the low gas flow rate produced, the most cost effective system suggested was to employ a purposely modified stove.

The task was to perform e feasibility study of distillation unit to separate residual bioethanol from the fermentate resulting from molasses fermentation. The study first involved a research study for state of the art technologies. Subsequently, a simulation software was employed to calculate the most important thermodynamic data and optimise the energy consumption of the system. The data obtained through simulation were later used to size the evaporation tank and pressure reducing valve.

Biannual extended reports were made, with team effort. Main subjects: aerodynamics, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, biomass conversion, biomass utilisation, separation technology, reliability, optimisation theory, thermal modelling, energy modelling, process modelling.

Strong theoretical studies within a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, physics, advanced physics, mathematics, advanced mathematics, mechanical engineering, thermal machines, mechanical machines, nuclear physics.