RICERCA ITALIANA     

Centre for Computational Mechanics

Politecnico di Bari

Abstract

We intend to form, at the Dipartimento di Ingegneria Meccanica e Gestionale (DIMeG), which will include, starting from October 1/2000 the existing Dipartimento di Progettazione e Produzione Industriale (DPPI) and Istituto di Macchine ed Energetica (IME) of the Politecnico di Bari, a multidisciplinary Centre of Excellence (CE) for COMPUTATIONAL MECHANICS of solids and fluids, which would put together the expertise and know-how from the Proponent Principal Investigators (PPI) in the areas of numerical methods and information technology for supporting mechanical design (both functional and constructive) i.e., aspects of kinematics, dynamics and fluid-dynamics, as well as static and fatigue design, as applied to the sectors of turbomachinery, automotive components, and mechanical engineering, in general. This expertise would be now mature, provided funding is granted, for a double jump :

(i) integration/competition/sinergy with the best similar centres, with which the PPI already have links and cooperation programs (including some of the most prestigious Universities/Research Centres in the world, as MIT, Harward, Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton, Sheffield, AFWAL, Ohio, U.C. Berkeley, UCLA, Universityof Cincinnati, ENS, Cachan (FR); Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Virginia Tech, Stanford

University etc.), towards further developments of computational methods and of information technology for the state-of-the-art design in the aeronautical and mechanical fields;

(ii) technology transfer of the available technology for the sustain of local industrries, nowadays fastly growing in these sectors, such as: a) mechanical systems, in the Bari area, with extension in Gioia del Colle, for production of mechanical transmissions, braking systems and in general automotive and general mechanical components; b) aeronautical, mechanical, prppulsion, naval, chemical-farmaceutical and energy systems in the Brindisi area.

(iii) teaching activity, with the scope of facilitating the goals listed above, in sinergetic effort with the other teaching activities at the Politecnico di Bari, at the degree level, but also at PhD level (see, e.g., the PHD proposal in Mechanical Engineering recently proposed by the DPPI and IME), as well as continuing education programs.

At present, several resourses in Computational Mechanics are distributed between the DPPI and IME, integrating such structures will be greatly favoured by the proposed CE.

The objective of the present proposal is to develop, starting from the existing resources, a Centre for Computational Mechanics aiming to explore engineering systems using supercomputing, i.e., models which cannot be handledby workstations of standard type. Moreover, the proponent researchers consider that these projects will lead, in the medium-long term, to independent support from industries and will achieve this goal by selecting activities relevant both for the industrial aspect that for the state-of-the-art scientific-accademic purpose.

The CE program, which is presented below in detail, will be in synthesis a multidisciplinary set of research activities:

A) Design and innovation towards: 1) Turbomachinery 2) injection systems 3) mechanical transmittion, 4) braking systems 5) wheel-rail contact 6) fluid-structure interaction, flutter, etc. B) Higher education activity for use of commercial and special purpose codes (the latter, realized by the proponent researchers, also in collaboration with third parties), for the given applications (finite elements, boundary elements, fluid-dynamics codes such as finite volumes, etc.). <<<

Principal Investigator

Michele NAPOLITANO Politecnico di BARI

International Relationship

As already stated, The CE will be constituted within the DIMeG of the Politecnico di Bari, which includes all experts of Mechanical and Production Engineering. It will serve as attraction pole for all large, medium and small enterprises in the mechanical sector, which already have ties with the DIMeG, concerning research projects and sponsored MS and PhD theses. It can be stated that the proposed CE, within the DIMeG, will promote research and technology innovation in Puglia.

The project will also work in sinergy with the Institute CNR IRIS, local host of the Network COMES (COmputational MEchanics of Solids). This is a multicentre netword composed of 5 Instutes of CNR (IRIS, LADSEB, CNUCE, IEI, IASI) with the aim of giving the scientific comunity, the public sector and society in general, adeguate computational power for the modern needs in Solid Mechanics. The WEB site gives general and detailed informations on the network's activities http://www.iei.pi.cnr.it/COMES Within the latter project, and in sinergy with the present proposal, the development of codes COMES-PCP (Plane Contact Problem) with application to fretting-fatigue problems in dovetail regions of gas turbine engines, as well as COMES-SLPO (Sequential Linear Programming Optimization) for optimization of truss structures, will continue. <<<

Research Objectives

The proponents and other participants of the CE have been working for many years in research areas about optimizing the performance and reliability of turbomachinery and other high technology mechanical applications. Their contributions are well known internationally, but their combination towards more advanced goals requires the continuing support of a well organized CE. Funding such a CE could have a dramatic impact towards achieving the following goals:

1) to create a reference structure for the computational mechanics capable of providing an effective help to the large, small and medium industries operating in Puglia in high technology sectors (Diesel injection, braking systems, mechanical transmissions, aeronautics, etc.). In the "Mechanical District" of the Bari province, there are many leading industries, which have research centers closely working together their manufacturing sites. Such centers would greatly benefit from a well organized and high lever CE for Computational Mechanics, helping them in the more advanced and challenging applications. Presently, it often happens that the requests from industries cannot be handled with the required speed and effectiveness, in spite of the presence of the required expertise in our Politecnico, because the single research groups are not focused as they could within the proposed CE;

2) to merge within a single structure the expertise of all the proponents and other components of the proposed CE, so that they can interact continuously and at the highest level with industries and research centers all over the world, which work towards optimizing the performance and reliability of turbomachinery and high technology mechanical components;

3) provide the local industries willing to perform a quality leap towards improving the technology content of their products a consulting service and a support in the aanalysis of problems requiring a higl level computational expertise as well as in the training of technicians to be destined to such needs. <<<