Current Position

Ph.D. Candidate, Propulsion & Power Group, TU Delft

Research

• Heat exchangers aerothermal characterization
• Power systems design and optimization
• Working fluids properties estimation

Expertise

• System Modeling (Modelica language)
• Heat exchangers aerothermal characterization
• IR thermography, temperature and pressure measurements, hot wire 

Biography

Federica is a mechanical engineer. She studied at University of Naples Federico II (Italy). She obtained her B. Sc. cum laude in Mechanical Engineering in 2016. The bachelor thesis project concerned the use of the IR technology to measure the emissivity of a Lexan circular sample. In 2018, she graduated cum laude in M. Sc. in Mechanical engineering for Energy and Environment. For her Master thesis project, she joined the Turbomachinery and Propulsion Department at the Von Karman Institute for the Short Training Programme, working on a project concerning a preliminary design of a supersonic wind tunnel for turbine cascade testing.

She applied for the Research Master-post-Master programme at the VKI, where she enrolled in the Environmental and Applied Fluid-dynamics department. During this period, she deepened some specific aspects of fluid-dynamics, together with laboratory training sections about different measurement techniques. She was assigned to an experimental research project: NATHENA (New Additive Manufacturing Heat Exchangers for Aeronautics), in the framework of the European programme Horizon 2020 and CleanSky 2. It concerned the aerothermal characterization of single modules of a fins and plate 3D printed Compact Heat Exchanger, with different internal fins geometry. After the Master, she attended the Post-Research Master Programme at the VKI to continue giving her contribution to the experimental campaign of NATHENA project.

Her interest in fluid-dynamics and heat transfer, and their applications in power systems, motivated her to apply for the Ph.D. position offered by the Propulsion and Power research group of the Aerospace Engineering Faculty of TU Delft. In October 2019, she joined the team as a Ph.D. candidate for the NEDEFA (Novel Electrically Driven Environmental Control System for Aircraft) project. The main objectives of her research are the modelling of a vapour compression cycle for air conditioning systems on aircraft, to demonstrate that a novel ECS, based on a vapour cycle machine with a high speed centrifugal compressor, increases the global efficiency of the aircraft system, if compared to a traditional air cycle machine.  The final objective is to perform an experimental campaign on an in-house facility, named IRIS, to test different working fluids and to develop thermodynamic models of suitable mixtures and possibly also test them. Further info about the project can be found here.

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