Italian Aerospace Research Centre

About: Italian Aerospace Research Centre is a other organization based out in Capua, Campania, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Aerodynamics & Morphing. The organization has 278 authors who have published 400 publications receiving 3563 citations. The organization is also known as: CIRA & Italian Aerospace Research Center.

A crashworthiness optimisation procedure for the design of full-composite fuselage section

Abstract: Crashworthiness of composites is a key-point in the design of new aeronautical structures. Special attention has been addressed in the last years to the energy absorption mechanisms of dedicated components in order to limit the structural damages and to preserve the occupants' safety. Remarkable progress has been made in this field. Despite this, to further improve the design of crashworthy composite structures, components modification, sensitivity analysis, design of experiments and optimisation procedures are needed. In this work, crashworthiness improvements, related to a simplified finite element model of a full-composite fuselage section subjected to a vertical drop-test, have been introduced. The genesis of the model has been described together with its main features and details and a high-speed vertical fall has been simulated, paying attention to velocity and payload. In addition, sensitivity analyses of some components and a discussion on the main crashworthiness characteristics have been carried out. Finally, the parent fuselage section and its simplified model have been compared under both energy and deformation points of view, showing a good results agreement.

Free-energy-based framework for early forecasting of stem cell differentiation

Abstract: Commitment of stem cells to different lineages is inherently stochastic but regulated by a range of environmental bio/chemo/mechanical cues. Here we develop an integrated stochastic modelling framework for predicting the differentiation of hMSCs in response to a range of environmental cues including sizes of adhesive islands, stiffness of substrates and treatment with ROCK inhibitors in both growth and mixed media. The statistical framework analyses the fluctuations of cell morphologies over around a 24-hour period after seeding the cells in the specific environment and uses the distribution of their cytoskeletal free-energy to forecast the lineage the hMSCs will commit to. The cytoskeletal free-energy which succinctly parameterises the biochemical state of the cell is shown to capture hMSC commitment over a range of environments while simple morphological factors such as cell shape, tractions on their own are unable to correlate with lineages hMSCs adopt.

An aviation support tool for satellite remote detection of in-flight icing.

Abstract: In-flight icing, i.e. the accretion of ice on airplane’s surfaces during flight, is caused by supercooled water droplets that freeze instantly when they impact the airframe and it represents a critical meteorological risk to aviation as it affects aircraft performance, stability and controllability. Therefore, the remote detection of weather conditions leading to in-flight icing is a goal of great interest to the scientific community.   In 2017, the Meteorological Laboratory of CIRA has developed a first satellite-based tool for in-flight icing detection in collaboration with Italian Air Force Meteorological Service. This tool is based on several high-resolution satellite products of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) and a set of experimental curves and envelopes describing the interrelationship of icing-related cloud variables that represent the icing reference certification rules, namely Appendix C to FAA 14 CFR Part 25 / EASA CS-25. However, Appendix C data do not consider Supercooled Large Droplets (SLD), which have been the cause of tragic accidents over the last decades and that have been introduced in new certification procedures and guidelines through the Appendix O, effective as of 2015. In the framework of the H2020 EU project SENS4ICE (SENSors and certifiable hybrid architectures for safer aviation in ICing Environment) started in 2019, CIRA is working on a further maturation of the previously developed icing detection algorithm, in order to consider also Appendix O Icing Conditions. The developed tool is targeted to identify areas potentially affected by in flight icing hazard, giving an estimate of the altitude and of the severity of the phenomenon (light, moderate, severe) with indication of possible SLD conditions. In the present work an overall description of the implemented tool is provided along with an analysis of its performance. Due to the lack of suitable in-situ observations of icing conditions, a complete validation of the developed product is challenging. A comparison with significant weather charts has been performed and other validation activities based on the comparison with soundings data are ongoing, showing quite good results. Furthermore, this tool is currently being used in the framework of the SENS4ICE flight test campaign (scheduled in April 2023), which represents a good opportunity to evaluate its performance in environmental icing conditions. During the flight tests, information on monitoring of icing conditions are provided in the pre-flight phase and updated in near-real time. The outcomes of the flight test campaign will be exploited to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the algorithm. Acknowledgment: This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N° 824253 (SENS4ICE project).

Enhanced time of flight THz imaging via a de-noising procedure based on band pass filtering

Abstract: Time of flight Terahertz imaging deserves huge attention in a wide range of applications, among which artwork diagnostic, food quality control, composite material assessment and so on. In all these contexts, the common requirement is to obtain high quality images from which one can infer material structure and localize hidden anomalies. Here, we apply a filtering procedure, which exploits the concept of the actual frequency bandwidth of the data, and present experimental results assessing the achievable improvements with respect to raw data imaging. These results regard specimens of interest in different applications, which have been surveyed by means of the Fiber-Coupled Terahertz Time Domain (FiCO) system.