I studied Aerospace Engineering at the Polytechnic of Turin and continued my studies working in the field of numerical simulation and earned a Ph.D. in Energetics. In the last year of my doctorate I performed fuel cell simulations and started working with Paolo Petaccia. Sharing the same professional path, we decided to found Allovis, a company specializing in complex CFD analysis using open source software.

• Location: Turin, Italy
• Current position: Senior Engineer
• Current computer: Intel CPU I7-4910MQ @ 2.9 GHz, 32.0 GB of RAM, 64-bit Windows 10 OS
• One word that best describes how you work: Effective

What software or tools do you use every day?

• OpenFOAM
• Pointwise
• Femap
• SolidWorks
• Microsoft Office
• Visual Studio
• Thunderbird
• ParaView
• Notepad++
• Firefox

What does your workspace look like?

Sometimes organized, sometimes not. I use two screens, a laptop and a larger screen on the right. I usually have more than one workspace, so my workspace “is” my laptop. I have some books behind my laptop and a mountain of paper related to the company.

What do you see are the biggest challenges facing CFD in the next 5 years?

In my opinion, the big challenge in the next five years for CFD is to demonstrate its credibility. Over the last several years, algorithms and tools have become more powerful and user friendly that CFD now runs the risk of being known as “colorful” fluid dynamics rather than computational fluid dynamics. Even if CFD is performed correctly, the overall process, expertise required, and tools are expensive in order to provide a remarkable contribution to the value chain of the design process. The future of CFD and its success will be related to how well an analyst can provide concrete value to the development process and increase the field of application.

What are you currently working on?

Currently I’m working on coupling different CAE tools, such as Pointwise, OpenFOAM, Dakota, and ParaView, using scripts and compiled VB applications.

What would you say is your meshing specialty?

My meshing specialty is being able to generate the right mesh for the task at hand…an effective mesh if you will. In other words, I focus my work and attention on maximizing mesh quality while simultaneously minimizing meshing time. I know that some can do this while also achieving remarkable aesthetics. These are the real meshing specialists!

Any tips for our users?

Start from the end. Know the quality of the results that you expect and the particulars of your validation case. Then, maximize your working efficiency using Pointwise’s functions and utilities to achieve your desired result.

What project are you most proud of and why?

The in-house development of a fluid network solver based on a non-linear finite element solver coupled with an optimizer. Every component of the network is characterized by a massive number of CFD analyses. I’m particularly proud of this work because it involved many of my favorite skills: CFD modeling, software development, and theoretical modeling.

What CFD solver and postprocessor do you use most often?

I use OpenFOAM for every CFD analysis and ParaView for post processing. I also enjoy using the automatic post processing routines provided with OpenFOAM.

A simulation of a wind tunnel used to design the control volume and calibrate experimental measurements.

Are you reading any interesting technical papers we should know about?

“An all-speed asymptotic-preserving method for the isentropic Euler and Navier-Stokes equations” by Jeffrey Haack, Shi Jin, and Jian-Guo Liu. (DOI: https://doi.org/10.4208/cicp.250910.131011a)

Do you plan on attending any conferences or workshops this year?

I plan to attend the Recurdyn Tech Days in Munich , Deutschland and the CAE conference in Vicenza, Italy.

What do you do outside the world of CFD?

I play (not very well) piano and (very bad) football. I am also the assessor in my city hall. I spend much of my time with my family, especially with my little daughter.

What is some of the best CFD advice you’ve ever received?

Validate your model with experimental data! And don’t forget to check if your CFD solver improvements yield results that fall within the error bars!

If you had to pick a place to have dinner, where would you go?

A real Italian restaurant. This would be a small place with fewer than 30 seats. You’ll find them everywhere in Piedmont, Italy.