RESEARCH
From world-class researchers to undergraduates, all members of the Faculty work collaboratively to deliver research to address real challenges and advance knowledge.
The Faculty’s research themes are supported by dedicated laboratories that provide the necessary infrastructure needed to support multi-disciplinary research as well as engagement with enterprise and social partners working together with our academic departments.
Continuum Mechanics Meets Echocardiographic Imaging
Recent investigations on the state of strain in human left ventricle based on the synergy between continuum mechanics and echocardiographic imaging showed great challenges. The analysis was based on the synergy between Engineers from our School and Cardiologists from our Policlinico Universitario, joined to create a Research Group coordinated by prof. P. Nardinocchi, funded by Sapienza, and supported by Toshiba Research Europe. Main aim of the investigations is the identification of early indicators of cardiac disease through noninvasive diagnostic techniques.
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Electromagnetic Shielding
The research group (S. Celozzi, R. Araneo, G. Lovat) has investigated all the aspects of a shielding problem:
• linear or non-linear materials, metamaterial, dispersive or optically transparent shields
• numerical codes and procedures for the analysis in the frequency or the time-domain
• new parameters to quantify the performance, accounting for the actual field distribution in the protected volume
Special configurations, like multiple shields (even non-linear), thick apertures, active shielding, loaded enclosures, have been also analysed by means of innovative methods
WAKE-UP: a Wearable Ankle Knee Exoskeleton
The WAKE-UP is an active orthosis made by two modules that interact synergistically and actively with the patients. We adopted the 3D prototyping technology for the manufacture of customized orthoseswith concurrent use of a 3D scanner system. The transmission system is based on ad-hoc designed Rotary Series Elastic Actuator to reach the necessary safety level. The novel algorithm for gait partitioning permits the effective driver activation in a variety of gait patterns. The prototype is currently used for preliminary clinical trials at the Children’s Hospital ‘Bambino Gesù’ Rome.
Funded by: IIT Call Project Seed, Italian Ministry of Health Call Novel Medical Devices.
Quality Assurance in Biomechanical measurements
The aims of the research new methods and devices to assess the overall quality of measurements conducted in motion labs: (i) joint kinematics and kinetics with a camera- and force plates-based approach; (ii) EMG analysis and measurement of posture and kinematics variables based on IMU. The research group is also assessing the metrological characteristics of instruments and methodologies to quantify muscle strength, inter-rater and inter-laboratory repeatability of gait variables, and validation of foot-ankle models for gait analysis.
The project is funded by: FP7 ICT-2011.5.2 MD PAEDIGREE and MIUR PRIN 2012
Convection Heat Transfer in Nanofluids
Effective cooling is one of the top challenges that high-tech manufacturing companies are continuously called to face in order to assure the reliability of their products, which justifies the considerable research effort dedicated to the development of advanced methods for heat transfer enhancement. An important contribution to the cooling issue may derive by the replacement of traditional heat transfer fluids with colloidal nanoparticle suspensions, called nanofluids, whose performance in both forced and natural convection applications is studied in depth by a group composed by M. Corcione, A. Quintino and E. Habib.
Fast diffusion across fractal interfaces
Heat transfer across a highly conductive Koch type interface. [M.R.Lancia,M.Cefalo, G.Dell'Acqua]
In many natural and industrial processes diffusion phenomena take place across disordered and wild media. Irregular interfaces of fractal type are a good tool to model such media which are believed to exhibit fractal properties. We focused on the study of fast-diffusion phenomena across irregular fractal boundaries both from a theoretical and a numerical point of view. This research is part of a long term project funded by Sapienza whose PI is M. Rosaria Lancia and it is in collaboration with the Department of Mathematics, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (MA,USA) in the context of an international agreement between ICI and WPI.
New Molecules for Organic Electronics
Diluted solutions of new oligothiophene derivatives exposed to ultraviolet light at 254 nm (left) and 365 nm (right)
Syntheses of novel oligothiophenes with highly polarizable extended π-electron systems that possess photoinduced intramolecular charge transfers at low energies. By proper choice of internal Donor-Acceptor architectures and by means of targeted syntheses it is possible to obtain valuable low bandgap donor materials to be used in organic photovoltaics.
Multispectral Imaging Applied to Cultural Heritage
Multispectral Images of a painting (Laboratorio di Analisi non distruttive e Archeometria LANDA)
Multispectral Imaging has been developed by combining digital imaging and spectroscopy. It consists in acquiring two‐dimensional images at different wavelengths within a given spectral range and allows to simultaneously record spatial and spectral information. In the case of paintings, selecting different illuminants and spectral ranges stratigraphic information can be obtained: with UV sources, the fluorescence emission from the superficial layer; with visible light, the reflectance from pictorial layers; with IR sources, images of underdrawings and pentimenti.