Posts by Michele Covolan

The objective of the European research programme Clean Sky 1 is to reduce CO2 emissions, greenhouse gasses and noises in the aeronautics. The project JTI Clean Sky GETREADY “High speed turbine casing produced by powder HIP technology” ranked third during the Award for the Best Project from Partners and Consortia. The project was directed by the National Interuniversity Consortium of Materials Science and Technology and carried out by a research department of Politecnico di Torino.

The award was given to professor Sara Biamino and professor Daniele Ugues of the Department of Applied Sciences and Technology, who coordinated the project. They took the prize during the Clean Sky 1 Closing Event (21^st-22^nd March 2017) in Brussels on behalf of the whole Consortium, composed of the French business Aubert&Duval, by a research department of Politecnico di Torino (coordinated by professor Stefano Beretta) and by Avio Aereo of Rivalta Torinese, Topic Manager of the project.

The project has shown that the material engineering, the production and the processing of the materials through heating systems enable the design and the production of more efficient products, which will be able to work in worse conditions and thanks to which we can reduce the wastefulness of precious raw materials.

During the project an innovative production technology has been used: it is called Net Shape Hot Isostatic Pressing (NSHIP) and allows the production of a turbine casing (that is the case around the turbine) by using a nickel super alloy that cannot be easily shaped and that, for this reason, cannot be used to produce the same part with a traditional production technology. With the project NSHIP the process starts with the powders of the chosen material; they are then put into a mould and heated up to 1200 degrees and with a pressure of around 1000 bar, until the final product is ready. Pressurising the materials is what makes the materials to “densify” and take the required form. With the project GETREADY two samples of casings have been produced thanks to this technology. The processing of the materials through best heating systems and their optimal shaping enabled us to obtain hot mechanical properties that are superior than the materials used now, thanks to which we have been able to solve problems which, otherwise, couldn’t have been resolved through the technologies we have used until today. If we produce a 90-kilo casing with the above-mentioned solution, we benefit from the raw materials by 75%, whereas with the traditional method we benefit from it only by 13%. The nickel super alloys are expensive and hard to find, since they are made of nickel but also of other high-quality materials. For this reason, it is very important to make good use of the raw materials: it is an advantage for the environment as well.

Another proof of the technical quality of the obtained results is the award the casing got in Hamburg (Germany): it awarded the prize of the European Association of Powder Metallurgy (EPMA) as best product of the year produced with the Hot Isostatic Processing.

We are now used to seeing an international event here in Turin: Salone dell’Auto, the first outdoor car show in Europe. Car companies, car body designer and design centres exhibit their previews along the tree-lined avenues of Parco Valentino, showing their ideas about the future prototypes and concept cars.

The organisation has decided to present a preview of the event at the Turin Airport with the exhibition “I maestri del car design” (Masters of car design), already been inaugurated and which lasts until 12^th June.

Part of this exhibition is Syrma, the concept car created thanks to the collaboration between the students in Transportation Design of IED Torino and Quattroruote. Other prototypes you can find here are Gumpert Tornante of Touring Superleggera and Mole Costruzione Artigianale of UP Design. The visitors can admire not only the cars, but also rough sketches.

According to Andrea Levy, president of Parco Valentino, the fair is a “national and international event: we have attracted at least 800 thousand people here in Turin. We have chosen Turin Airport as location of this exhibition in order to give travellers the opportunity to see what will be later showed at Parco Valentino from 7^th to 11^th June, where they can admire the most elegant part of the fair: the car design section.”

With the stability law 2017 new regulations about the university dues have been defined and are entering into force from the academic year 2017/18.

If you want to benefit from the reduction of the university dues for the academic year 2017/18, you have to ask for an ISEE for the facilitated services for the right to study by the 31^st August 2017.

The university will get the ISEE for the facilitated services for the right to study and will define the dues each student has to pay.

For further information, please ask Ufficio Tasse e Accertamenti. You can find the contacts on the website of the University.

Starting from next year, around 10 thousand students enrolled in Politecnico di Torino can benefit from the GTT Card and up to 22 thousand free Museums Cards.

All this is allowed by a booming balance of Politecnico di Torino: for this reason, starting from next year all the students who take the exams constantly can take advantage of two new free services.

This is what the board of directors of Politecnico have decided today. The first new aspect is the amount of the dues the students will have to pay to Politecnico: “We think that there will be 2,5 million Euros earnings less than the last years, and it is an advantage for our students to reorganise the dues system”, says the vice-dean Anita Tabacco.

The second new aspect is about the “welfare package”, in which Politecnico is going to invest 2,3 million Euros. The free yearly pass GTT will be given to all the students with a familiar income under 30.500 per year; there are no limitations upon the Museums Cards, instead. To benefit from any of these two services, the students have to make a specific request and award a minimum number of credits. These are the minimum requirements defined in the last stability law: the new enrolled students (both in Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees) can benefit from these two services immediately, while the students who attend the second year have to have gotten at least 10 credits and the ones of the third year at least 25 credits over the last 12 months.

“We had had the package “Vivitorino” for years and it was used only by a small range of students. After that experience, we have decided to extend this opportunity to all students, enabling them to live our city at best and to enjoy the museums of Turin”, explains the vice-dean Tabacco.

The Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) issued the decree that regulates the entrance requirements for the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree courses together with the dates when the entrance tests for the academic year 2017/18 take place.

The procedure and the content of the tests and the number of places available for the enrolment will be defined in the next decree.

On March 30^th at 5 p.m. a new exhibition is taking place at the former library Biblioteca Centro Civico in Corso Vercelli, 15, Turin. This exhibition will be followed by a debate about the urban renewal organised by Politecnico di Torino.

Around 60 students of the Sustainable Design Atelier at the department of Architecture, a course of study coordinated by professors Gustavo Ambrosini and Alezio Rivotti, worked together from October 2016 to January 2017 in order to design a new future for one of the most discussed areas of the city, where there are many urgent problems: the area Ponte Mosca.

Through this project the students have developed many potential renewal strategies: they developed a new design for the educational area and planned new educational activities, which can be an inspiration for discussions about the possible directions of growth of this area.

The professors and the students of the Atelier will present their projects at Circoscrizione 7, where Luca Deri (President of Circoscrizione 7) and Guido Montanari (Deputy Mayor of Turin) will be present as well. Many experts have been invited to this presentation: Marco Marocco (Deputy Mayor of Città Metropolitana), Giovanni Monterosso (Assessor of the City Heritage and City Planning – Città Metropolitana), Marta Levi (Edisu) and Giovanni Durbiano (Politecnico di Torino, Architecture and Design).

On March 21^st 2017 one of the topics of discussion at Politecnico was the challenges of the researchers and the obtained results, which make the university rank in the first places in Italy and in Europe as regards the funding per head. The quality of the scientific and technological research is the basis of the reputation of a university in Europe and in the world.

The obtained results and the future strategies were examined and explained to the city and the region, in order to show the challenges of the scientific research together with the strategies and the actions that were carried out thanks to the support of institutional and industrial partners; their collaboration fosters projects in different sectors of the fundamental and applied research. On this occasion it was possible to show the main results Politecnico obtained in this sector, which make the university rank in the first places in Italy and Europe as regards the funding per head: there are already 100 projects of the programme UE Horizon2020 and around 37 million euros have been given out in the last three years. All these factors enabled Politecnico to gain better positions both on a national and on a European level: it ranks 4^th in Italy and 58^th in Europe, overcoming other bigger universities. There are also 36 international projects, 112 national projects and 342 regional projects that have been obtained in the last five years and are worth 62 million euros. There are also important research contracts with agencies and businesses (about 19 million euros in 2016).

The university has started specific projects in order to encourage students to participate and to increase the project activities: the projects H2020@polito and ERC@polito offer professors and researchers tools that support the activities. There has also been an announcement (La ricerca dei talenti – The talents research) supported by Fondazione CRT, whose aim was to give value to the independence of young researchers.

In addition, many activities have been organised thanks to the partnership between Politecnico and Compagnia di Sanpaolo: as regards the internationalisation of research, new announcements have been introduced. Their objective is the development of partnerships with universities which rank in the first 50 positions of the international rankings or which are in strategic areas of interest for Politecnico; another goal is the creation of research projects in collaboration with international agencies of excellence, thanks to exchanges of doctorate students. Starting grants are also planned, in order to finance highly-qualified researchers who come from other universities or research agencies. Last but not least, Mettin in rete la tua idea di ricerca is a new initiative which allows the sharing of research ideas on the internet, which has been launched to give value to the collaborative research.

The vice-dean for research Stefano Corgnati and the director of the Research Area Laura Fulci have explained the actions and the projects that have been started. The researchers of the university have presented some of the projects of fundamental and applied research (individual or collaborative), showing videos where they talk about the various fields of research of Politecnico, the departments and the many financial sources which support the projects, the mobility and the career of the researchers. Important industrial partners the university collaborates with took the floor as well: among them Prima Industrie, which collaborates on a project about Technological Platforms – Intelligent Plant of Regione Piemonte; FCA, which has given its contribute for almost 20 years; ENI and GM, which have signed partnership agreements with the university.

Finally, a workshop introduced by the President of Compagnia Sanpaolo and the previous dean of the university Francesco Profumo enabled the discussion with institutional partners and businesses about the relationship between Politecnico and the socio-economic system of the region and of the country, in a background where new roles and new financial models are extremely requested from a technical university.

“Universities are requested not only to carry out scientific research, but also to contribute to promote the spread of new technologies, in collaboration with the socio-economic system and the institutions. They also have to be able to find solutions for the challenges they face. Politecnico has established itself as a Research University, which is recognised on an international level, as the most accredited rankings show: in fact, Politecnico has one of the highest positions in the world as regards Engineering and Architecture” said the dean Marco Gilli during his introduction.

“Politecnico must confront itself with an international research context which has become more and more competitive but which also offers unlimited resources” said the vice-dean for research Stefano Corgnati. “For this reason Politecnico has defined new strategies in favour of research, in collaboration with the most prestigious universities in the world and continuous exchanges of researchers and professors. We have also adopted specific policies for the promotion of multidisciplinary activities, since we want to put together the knowledge of different sectors in order to carry out complete research that make us competitive with the great international research groups. Finally, we have planned support actions for the young researchers who have to work in innovative and difficult fields, where a high scientific quality is necessary expertise on an economic, financial and management level”.