Papers by Giorgio Baldinelli
Energy harvesting from renewable sources can play a vital role to decarbonize the environment, li... more Energy harvesting from renewable sources can play a vital role to decarbonize the environment, limit global warming and mitigate the growing energy demand. The objective of this work consists of decarbonizing a University Campus and neighboring communities by producing electricity from solar photovoltaic systems integrated with an energy storage system and local grid station. A new mathematical model is developed to maximize the system power generation and balance the load demand. The simulation and optimization software System Advisor Model (SAM) is used to develop and test model results. The software is used to analyze and optimize the solar energy generation, the energy demand, and the economic performance: capital cost, overall investment, net present value, and the Levelized Cost of Energy of the project. A novel approach decentralized load centers is adopted to share power with adjacent communities. At the aim of improving the system flexibility, reliability, and climate resilience, the established model is grid-connected. The CO 2 emissions reduction is also determined to evaluate the environmental impact of the interventions.
Green building concept plays a fundamental role in reducing the use of resources and the impacts ... more Green building concept plays a fundamental role in reducing the use of resources and the impacts on human health and environment, during the whole building life cycle. Therefore, a method to measure the building sustainability rate is crucial for comparing various alternatives in terms of use of different materials, energy resources, production processes to reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts. Many protocols have been proposed to perform buildings' sustainability evaluation; however, different operators applying these certification tools might need to make hypotheses, even different from each other, to complete the whole procedure. Hence, this work aims to evaluate whether and how the hypotheses formulated by each operator can influence the final certification level. To this end, a Round Robin Test among international partners was performed using different versions of LEED sustainability protocol to the same building with the same boundary conditions, comparing and analyzing the results provided by the participants. The final aim was to identify which issues have more influence on the final performance rate, giving to the users a deeper knowledge of the aspects included in these procedures. The results showed the potential of these building environmental certification systems, capable of offering a transversal level of environmental sustainability.
During the operation of the CMS experiment at the High-Luminosity LHC the silicon
sensors of the ... more During the operation of the CMS experiment at the High-Luminosity LHC the silicon
sensors of the Phase-2 Outer Tracker will be exposed to radiation levels that could potentially
deteriorate their performance. Previous studies had determined that planar float zone silicon with
n-doped strips on a p-doped substrate was preferred over p-doped strips on an n-doped substrate.
The last step in evaluating the optimal design for the mass production of about 200m2 of silicon
sensors was to compare sensors of baseline thickness (about 300 μm) to thinned sensors (about
240 μm), which promised several benefits at high radiation levels because of the higher electric
fields at the same bias voltage. This study provides a direct comparison of these two thicknesses
in terms of sensor characteristics as well as charge collection and hit efficiency for fluences up to
1,5 x 1015 neq/cm2. The measurement results demonstrate that sensors with about 300 μm thickness
will ensure excellent tracking performance even at the highest considered fluence levels expected for
the Phase-2 Outer Tracker.
The main ANCHOR LIFE objective is to raise awareness, communicate and disseminate the topic of no... more The main ANCHOR LIFE objective is to raise awareness, communicate and disseminate the topic of noise pollution coming from ports affecting urban nearby territories among public Administrations and land management decisionmakers, port authorities, private companies involved in port activities, citizens living in port cities and academics. The process will be led by the development and application of three Best Practices for Noise Governance and Information, one for each partner port authority, in order to enhance relationships among all the port actors, i.e. port authorities, companies and local communities. In detail, ANCHOR LIFE aims to develop three main activities: supporting rewarding "Figures of Merit" in port noise governance in Livorno, Piombino and Portoferraio ports to stimulate private companies to adopt noise decreasing practices in return for economic benefits or other advantages; designing and installing a Smart Port Noise Monitoring System in Patras port, consisting of a network of low-cost microphones; preparing a Guideline for the definition of a common approach in port noise monitoring and assessment, in order to produce Port Noise Impact Assessments to be included in ports Environmental Management Systems, to be applied to the proposed expansion of Melilla port..
Climate change (CC) is predominantly connected to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from
the constru... more Climate change (CC) is predominantly connected to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from
the construction sector. It is clear how it is necessary to rethink construction materials in order to
reduce GHG emissions. Among the various strategies proposed, recent research has investigated
the potential of smart materials. This study in particular aims to develop an innovative building
component that combines high energy performance with reduced thickness and weight. For this
reason, the potential of Phase Change Materials (PCM) in cement-based mixes is investigated,
comparing the performance of a traditional mix with two innovative mixes made with the addition
of 3% and 7% PCM. This work characterizes the new material, analyzing its mechanical and thermal
performance, highlighting how the mix strength decreases as the PCM ratio increases; however, both
mixes may be considered suitable for masonry structures and may be classified as M5 and M15.
Furthermore, from the analysis of the thermal performance, it emerges that the mix presents good
behavior in terms of insulating properties.
A semi-empirical model for preheater design to trigger CO 2 boiling for detector cooling
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
An innovative technique based on beamforming is implemented, at the aim of detecting the distance... more An innovative technique based on beamforming is implemented, at the aim of detecting the distances from the observer and the relative positions among the noise sources themselves in multisource noise scenarios. By means of preliminary activities to assess the optical camera focal length and stereoscopic measurements followed by image processing, the geometric information in the sourcemicrophone direction is retrieved, a parameter generally missed in classic beamforming applications. A corollary of the method consists of the possibility of obtaining also the distance among different noise sources which could be present in a multisource environment. A loss of precision is found when the effect of the high acoustic reflectivity ground interferes with the noise source.
The CMS detector at the CERN LHC features a silicon pixel detector as its innermost
subdetector. ... more The CMS detector at the CERN LHC features a silicon pixel detector as its innermost
subdetector. The original CMS pixel detector has been replaced with an upgraded pixel system
(CMS Phase-1 pixel detector) in the extended year-end technical stop of the LHC in 2016/2017. The
upgraded CMS pixel detector is designed to cope with the higher instantaneous luminosities that
have been achieved by the LHC after the upgrades to the accelerator during the first long shutdown
in 2013–2014. Compared to the original pixel detector, the upgraded detector has a better tracking
performance and lower mass with four barrel layers and three endcap disks on each side to provide
hit coverage up to an absolute value of pseudorapidity of 2.5. This paper describes the design and
construction of the CMS Phase-1 pixel detector as well as its performance from commissioning to
early operation in collision data-taking.
The need for the reduction of energy use has recently led to the development of expensive and tec... more The need for the reduction of energy use has recently led to the development of expensive and technological smart materials. The exploitation of specific properties of natural materials can reduce both the economic and the environmental impact characterizing the new technologies. In this paper, the hygroscopic behaviour of wood, always considered as a negative property of the material for its end-use, becomes a positive feature in the realization of double-layered composites which passively react to the variations in relative humidity. The bending reaction of the wood bilayer is investigated and applied to a passive ventilation system for indoor environments, where the changes in relative humidity produce a controlled adaptation of the panels, contributing to reach an adaptive hygrothermal comfort.
La riduzione dei consumi energetici e delle emissioni di gas serra condiziona oggi la gran parte ... more La riduzione dei consumi energetici e delle emissioni di gas serra condiziona oggi la gran parte delle attività commerciali e produttive. In questo contesto, si inserisce la rapida e in continua crescita diffusione del legno nel settore delle costruzioni, materiale naturale caratterizzato da una bassa impronta ecologica, che si lega da una parte alla gestione sostenibile del patrimonio forestale italiano, dall'altra alla sensibilizzazione di
Standard ISO 10077-2 gives the procedure to calculate thermal transmittances of window frames in ... more Standard ISO 10077-2 gives the procedure to calculate thermal transmittances of window frames in 2D numerical simulations. It also introduces some examples of frame geometrical models with all necessary input data and the solutions so as to perform validation of the applied numerical tools. In the present paper, the models prepared with a commercial finite volume software of a PVC window frame were first positively validated with the results given in the Standard. An experimental test was then implemented to confirm the simulated data, with satisfactory agreement. The numerical code was used on one of the frames provided by the Standard to perform a sensitivity analysis of all the components and boundary conditions playing a role on the definition of the frame thermal transmittance, such as surface heat transfer coefficients, values of the solid thermal conductivity, emissivity and insulation properties of air gaps. Results demonstrate that the air gap properties represent the most influential parameters for the definition of the PVC window frames thermal transmittance, followed by the surface heat transfer coefficients and the PVC thermal conductivity. The rubber and the steel properties show a negligible effect on the whole frame performance. This procedure could constitute a design tool to guide the efforts of window manufacturers for the achievement of high performance products.
The aim of the paper is to quantitatively analyse a main source of uncertainty in LCA practice, i... more The aim of the paper is to quantitatively analyse a main source of uncertainty in LCA practice, i.e. the one due to the LCA practitioner. The same life cycle inventory dataset was used by six practitioners to independently compute six environmental impact categories with a cradle to grave approach, considering a red wine bottle produced by an Italian winery. To obtain the repeatability (r) and reproducibility (R) limits for each impact categories, LCA results were analyzed according to the ASTM E691-05 standard specifications. After a first stage of the study, in which relevant differences in the approach used and results were observed, all the practitioners considered the same system boundaries and processes, and, as a consequence, the results of all the impact categories became comparable. Nevertheless, the choice of different inventory datasets for describing the same process caused variations among the practitioners' outcomes. This study highlighted how the uncertainties due to the practitioner choices may significantly affect LCA results, especially when lack of information affects the data collection. The practitioner-related uncertainty should be considered in the same way as other uncertainty sources, especially when the Life Cycle impacts of a product are compared to the ones published in other studies.
new CMS tracker detector will be installed for operation at the High Luminosity LHC
(HL-LHC). Thi... more new CMS tracker detector will be installed for operation at the High Luminosity LHC
(HL-LHC). This detector comprises modules with two closely spaced parallel sensor plates and
front-end ASICs capable of transmitting tracking information to the CMS Level-1 (L1) trigger at the
40MHz beam crossing rate. The inclusion of tracking information in the L1 trigger decision will
be essential for selecting events of interest efficiently at the HL-LHC. The CMS Binary Chip (CBC)
has been designed to read out and correlate hits from pairs of tracker sensors, forming so-called
track stubs. For the first time, a prototype irradiated module and a full-sized module, both equipped
with the version 2 of the CBC, have been operated in test beam facilities. The efficiency of the stub
finding logic of the modules for various angles of incidence has been studied. The ability of the
modules to reject tracks with transverse momentum less than 2 GeV has been demonstrated. For
modules built with irradiated sensors, no significant drop in the stub finding performance has been
observed. Results from the beam tests are described in this paper.
In recent years, ventilation of indoor environment became relevant in the design of well-insulate... more In recent years, ventilation of indoor environment became relevant in the design of well-insulated buildings; with the aim of fulfilling energy saving requirements, new building mechanical ventilation systems have been developed to guarantee heat recovery. The most common heat recovery systems used in air conditioning systems permit only heat recovery, without moisture exchange. However, exchangers capable to recover heat and mass have been developed in the latest years, i.e. the enthalpy exchangers, which use porous materials or membranes. These materials allow the transfer of water vapor molecules between inlet and outlet air. In the present paper the performance of an original and innovative organic polymeric membrane was analysed and compared to a commercial one. The effectiveness of the two membranes was tested by a single plate enthalpy exchanger developed for this purpose, looking at the ability of each membrane to transfer heat and moisture between two airstreams, varying their temperature and relative humidity. Results shows that both membranes have similar performance in terms of moisture transfer between the two airstreams, confirming that the proposed membrane could play a role in the world of the enthalpy exchangers, considering its lower production cost.
For highly inhomogeneous components (windows, doors, etc...), imposing sinusoidal temperatures fr... more For highly inhomogeneous components (windows, doors, etc...), imposing sinusoidal temperatures from one side and constant temperature to the other side, could give periodic thermal transmittance exactly with the same definition described in the standard EN 13786. For thermal bridges something similar to the ψ value of steady-state conditions could be defined: the idea is that a homogenous wall as its own periodic thermal transmittance; when a thermal bridge is applied to this wall (for instance with the insertion of a pillar), the simulation will give a new periodic thermal transmittance. The difference between the two periodic thermal transmittances gives information on the effect of the thermal bridge, obtaining something similar to the ψ value. With a Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis, the paper deals with the definition of linear periodic thermal transmittance that could be useful for the response of the whole building envelope (in terms of complex heat flow rate through the inner environment) to the external temperature oscillation. This approach opens the way to define a new Standard to include thermal bridges and inhomogeneous components in general in the dynamic calculations of the buildings envelope.
In 2017 a new pixel detector was installed in the CMS detector. This so-called Phase-1
pixel dete... more In 2017 a new pixel detector was installed in the CMS detector. This so-called Phase-1
pixel detector features four barrel layers in the central region and three disks per end in the forward
regions. The upgraded pixel detector requires an upgraded data acquisition (DAQ) system to accept
a new data format and larger event sizes. A new DAQ and control system has been developed
based on a combination of custom and commercial microTCA parts. Custom mezzanine cards on
standard carrier cards provide a front-end driver for readout, and two types of front-end controller
for configuration and the distribution of clock and trigger signals. Before the installation of the
detector the DAQ system underwent a series of integration tests, including readout of the pilot pixel
detector, which was constructed with prototype Phase-1 electronics and operated in CMS from
2015 to 2016, quality assurance of the CMS Phase-1 detector during its assembly, and testing with
the CMS Central DAQ. This paper describes the Phase-1 pixel DAQ and control system, along with
the integration tests and results. A description of the operational experience and performance in
data taking is included.
Purpose Energy consumption of buildings is one of the major drivers of environmental impacts. Lif... more Purpose Energy consumption of buildings is one of the major drivers of environmental impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) may support the assessment of burdens and benefits associated to eco-innovations aiming at reducing these environmental impacts. Energy efficiency policies however typically focus on the meso-or macro-scale, while interventions are typically taken at the micro-scale. This paper presents an approach that bridges this gap by using the results of energy simulations and LCA studies at the building level to estimate the effect of micro-scale eco-innovations on the macro-scale, i.e. the housing stock in Europe. Methods LCA and dynamic energy simulations are integrated to accurately assess the life cycle environmental burdens and benefits of eco-innovation measures at the building level. This allows quantitatively assessing the effectiveness of these measures to lower the energy use and environmental impact of buildings. The analysis at this micro-scale focuses on 24 representative residential buildings within the EU. For the upscaling to the EU housing stock, a hybrid approach is used. The results of the micro-scale analysis are upscaled to the EU housing stock scale by adopting the eco-innovation measures to (part of) the EU building stock (bottom-up approach) and extrapolating the relative impact reduction obtained for the reference buildings to the baseline stock model. The reference buildings in the baseline stock model have been developed by European Commission-Joint Research Centre based on a statistical analysis (top-down approach) of the European housing stock. The method is used to evaluate five scenarios covering various aspects: building components (building envelope insulation), technical installations (renewable energy), user behaviour (night setback of the setpoint temperature), and a combined scenario. Results and discussion Results show that the proposed combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches allow accurately assessing the impact of eco-innovation measures at the macro-scale. The results indicate that a combination of policy measures is necessary to lower the environmental impacts of the building stock to a significative extent. Conclusions Interventions addressing energy efficiency at building level may lead to the need of a trade-off between resource efficiency and environmental impacts. LCA integrated with dynamic energy simulation may help unveiling the potential improvements and burdens associated to eco-innovations.
The characterization of thermal insulation properties of construction materials represents a fund... more The characterization of thermal insulation properties of construction materials represents a fundamental step on the building insulation assessment. In recent years innovative materials have been introduced in the market to fulfill the continuously growing requirements of energy saving and sustainability, and their performance is not so reliable and mature as it happens for traditional insulators. The work presents a Round Robin Test realised among six European laboratories hosting hot plates devices to measure the thermal conductivity of four different materials: aerogel, vacuum insulation panels, polystyrene and birch wood fibre insulation boards. After the definition of the common measurement protocol, the tests campaign was executed and the results were checked with a consistency analysis. Data showed that the hot plate apparatuses result suitable for the measurement of the tested innovative materials, both in terms of absolute values retrieved and repeatability. The reproducibility is satisfactory as well, except for vacuum insulation panels, the most insulating samples, which present values of standard deviations quite high, at least in relative terms, so showing that the thermal properties of high performance materials must be assessed with particular care.
Stabilized SPEEK Membranes with a High Degree of Sulfonation for Enthalpy Heat Exchangers, 2018
In this investigation, we explored for the first time the use of cross-linked sulfonated poly (et... more In this investigation, we explored for the first time the use of cross-linked sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) membranes in the fabrication of enthalpy heat exchangers. SPEEK is very sensitive to changes in relative humidity, especially when featuring high degrees of sulfonation (DS), though a poor mechanical stability may be observed in the latter case. Cross-linking is crucial in overcoming this issue, and here, we firstly employed the INCA method (ionomer counter-elastic pressure " n c " analysis) to assess the improvements in the mechanical properties. The cross-link was achieved following a simple thermal-assisted process that occurs directly on the performed membranes. After an initial screening, a degree of cross-link = 0.1 was selected as the better compromise between absorption of water vapor and mechanical properties. When implemented in the enthalpy heat exchanger system, these cross-linked SPEEK membranes enabled a high level of sensible heat exchange, as well as a remarkable variation in the mass (water vapor) transfer between the individual air flows. The performances resulted in being better than those for the system based on a benchmark commercially available perfluorinated Nafion membrane.
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Papers by Giorgio Baldinelli
sensors of the Phase-2 Outer Tracker will be exposed to radiation levels that could potentially
deteriorate their performance. Previous studies had determined that planar float zone silicon with
n-doped strips on a p-doped substrate was preferred over p-doped strips on an n-doped substrate.
The last step in evaluating the optimal design for the mass production of about 200m2 of silicon
sensors was to compare sensors of baseline thickness (about 300 μm) to thinned sensors (about
240 μm), which promised several benefits at high radiation levels because of the higher electric
fields at the same bias voltage. This study provides a direct comparison of these two thicknesses
in terms of sensor characteristics as well as charge collection and hit efficiency for fluences up to
1,5 x 1015 neq/cm2. The measurement results demonstrate that sensors with about 300 μm thickness
will ensure excellent tracking performance even at the highest considered fluence levels expected for
the Phase-2 Outer Tracker.
the construction sector. It is clear how it is necessary to rethink construction materials in order to
reduce GHG emissions. Among the various strategies proposed, recent research has investigated
the potential of smart materials. This study in particular aims to develop an innovative building
component that combines high energy performance with reduced thickness and weight. For this
reason, the potential of Phase Change Materials (PCM) in cement-based mixes is investigated,
comparing the performance of a traditional mix with two innovative mixes made with the addition
of 3% and 7% PCM. This work characterizes the new material, analyzing its mechanical and thermal
performance, highlighting how the mix strength decreases as the PCM ratio increases; however, both
mixes may be considered suitable for masonry structures and may be classified as M5 and M15.
Furthermore, from the analysis of the thermal performance, it emerges that the mix presents good
behavior in terms of insulating properties.
subdetector. The original CMS pixel detector has been replaced with an upgraded pixel system
(CMS Phase-1 pixel detector) in the extended year-end technical stop of the LHC in 2016/2017. The
upgraded CMS pixel detector is designed to cope with the higher instantaneous luminosities that
have been achieved by the LHC after the upgrades to the accelerator during the first long shutdown
in 2013–2014. Compared to the original pixel detector, the upgraded detector has a better tracking
performance and lower mass with four barrel layers and three endcap disks on each side to provide
hit coverage up to an absolute value of pseudorapidity of 2.5. This paper describes the design and
construction of the CMS Phase-1 pixel detector as well as its performance from commissioning to
early operation in collision data-taking.
(HL-LHC). This detector comprises modules with two closely spaced parallel sensor plates and
front-end ASICs capable of transmitting tracking information to the CMS Level-1 (L1) trigger at the
40MHz beam crossing rate. The inclusion of tracking information in the L1 trigger decision will
be essential for selecting events of interest efficiently at the HL-LHC. The CMS Binary Chip (CBC)
has been designed to read out and correlate hits from pairs of tracker sensors, forming so-called
track stubs. For the first time, a prototype irradiated module and a full-sized module, both equipped
with the version 2 of the CBC, have been operated in test beam facilities. The efficiency of the stub
finding logic of the modules for various angles of incidence has been studied. The ability of the
modules to reject tracks with transverse momentum less than 2 GeV has been demonstrated. For
modules built with irradiated sensors, no significant drop in the stub finding performance has been
observed. Results from the beam tests are described in this paper.
pixel detector features four barrel layers in the central region and three disks per end in the forward
regions. The upgraded pixel detector requires an upgraded data acquisition (DAQ) system to accept
a new data format and larger event sizes. A new DAQ and control system has been developed
based on a combination of custom and commercial microTCA parts. Custom mezzanine cards on
standard carrier cards provide a front-end driver for readout, and two types of front-end controller
for configuration and the distribution of clock and trigger signals. Before the installation of the
detector the DAQ system underwent a series of integration tests, including readout of the pilot pixel
detector, which was constructed with prototype Phase-1 electronics and operated in CMS from
2015 to 2016, quality assurance of the CMS Phase-1 detector during its assembly, and testing with
the CMS Central DAQ. This paper describes the Phase-1 pixel DAQ and control system, along with
the integration tests and results. A description of the operational experience and performance in
data taking is included.