PhD Course in Technical Physics (DIMSAI)
Title (field of Research)
Description of research areas
(Please refer to the field of research in which
PhD candidates can be integrated)
Collaboration with Brazilian research groups
Current projects with indication of financing sources/
Publications, etc. (short description)
Convection in Porous Media: Flow Stability with
Applications to Non-Newtonian Fluids and Metallic
Foams
The research program aims to develop an analysis of the
flow stability in porous materials saturated by a
Newtonian or non-Newtonian fluid. Specific conditions to
be examined as possible sources of the instability are:
the viscous dissipation and the boundary conditions. For
the latter, a special attention must be devoted to cases
where the imposed temperature gradient is inclined to
the vertical and is generally non-uniform.
Specific focus of the research program is on:
Viscoelastic fluids;
Metallic foams and heat transfer enhancement;
Thermal processing of biological fluids;
Development of algorithms for the numerical
solution of eigenvalue problems in
hydrodynamic stability
Collaboration is open with Universidade Federal
Fluminense UFF - Niteri, RJ.
A joint project with a research group at UFF, Centro
Tecnolgico, Escola de Engenharia (Prof. Leandro
Alcoforado Sphaier, and Prof. Leonardo Santos de Brito
Alves) has recently started.
Exchange visits:
July 2012. Prof. Leonardo Santos de Brito Alves,
Prof. Leandro Alcoforado Sphaier and Prof.
Antonio Barletta met at conference CHT-12 in
Bath (UK)
September 2012. Prof. Leandro Alcoforado
Sphaier visits Unibo
November 2012. Prof. Antonio Barletta visits
UFF and is a keynote lecturer at the 14th
Brazilian Congress of Thermal Sciences and
Engineering (ENCIT 2012)
January 2013. Prof. Leonardo Santos de Brito
Alves visits Unibo
May-July 2013. Dr. Michele Celli visited.
September 2013. Prof. Leonardo Santos de Brito
Alves and Prof. Leandro Alcoforado Sphaier
visited Unibo for research and teaching.
July 2014. Prof. Leonardo Santos de Brito Alves
and Prof. Leandro Alcoforado Sphaier visited
Unibo for research and teaching.
August 2014 to August 2015. A MSc student
from UFF, Pedro Vayssiere Brandao, visits Unibo
with a CSF grant.
RFO funds from Unibo;
FARB and FIBRA funds from Unibo.
Updated list of publications of the Supervisor are
 available at the web page:
abarletta.people.ing.unibo.it/index-publications.html
Academic Contact Person (Supervisor/Research director) Antonio Barletta
First name /Family name Gian Luca Morini
Email antonio.barletta@unibo.it
gianluca.morini3@unibo.it

Doctoral Program Curriculum Fisica Tecnica - Dottorato DIMSAI

Department DIN - Department of Industrial Engineering
Field of study (according to CSF priority areas) Engineering and other technological areas
Specialization (according to CSF priority areas) Other
Key words (max 40) Fluid mechanics; Heat transfer; Convection; Porous
media; Metallic foams; Viscoelastic fluids
Special requirements (lab experience, computer skills, Background in fluid mechanics and heat transfer. Basic
etc) knowledge of analytical (separation of variables, integral
transforms) and numerical (finite differences, finite
elements) methods for the solution of partial differential
equations. Basic knowledge of software packages for the
symbolic computation (Mathematica or Maple). Basic
knowledge of CFD numerical codes (Comsol Multiphysics
or Fluent).
Other requirements Ability to collaborate and work in a research group
Starting date (TBA) PhD sandwich

Duration of exchange PhD sandwich (up to 12 month)

12 months
Working language(s) Italian
English
Others
Exchange hosting capacity (Please indicate the number 2 candidates, PhD sandwich
of candidates)