About

Engines and computers, turned into a job

I am a mechanical engineer who writes combustion models and the codes that run them. I work as an independent consultant for engine manufacturers and research groups.

Background

All of my work has been about numerical combustion: models, algorithms and software that make simulations of chemically reacting flows more accurate and much faster, so that more complete physics can be used on engines of industrial interest.

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in 2011, with a thesis on optimally reduced reaction mechanisms for engines running on biofuels. I then joined the Engine Research Center of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in the group of Prof. Rolf Reitz, where I worked on advanced, fuel-efficient combustion strategies and on the numerics of combustion, in long collaborations with engine manufacturers and with Sandia National Laboratories.

Today I am a self-employed consulting engineer based in Italy, and a consultant with Wisconsin Engine Research Consultants.

Codes

SpeedCHEM was my first complete project as a scientific programmer, started in 2010: a chemical kinetics library that cuts the cost of detailed chemistry by up to three orders of magnitude compared with earlier reference codes.

FRESCO is the CFD code for engine combustion that I have been building since: a parallel finite-volume solver with its own desktop program.

I also contribute to open-source Fortran, in particular to the linear algebra part of the Fortran Standard Library.

Away from the keyboard

The other keyboard: the piano. Before engineering, it was close to becoming my profession.

Federico Perini as a child, typing on an Olivetti M24 computer in 1987
Olivetti M24, 1987. My father could not imagine what he started when he replaced the old typewriter.
In short
  • Ph.D., University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, 2011
  • Engine Research Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison
  • 21 journal papers, 26 conference papers
  • Author of SpeedCHEM and FRESCO
  • Contributor to the Fortran Standard Library
  • Languages: Italian, English