Event in ENGLISH
In this second event of the rIICerca series, we will discuss with Professors Julien Blondeau and Alessandro Parente the phenomenon of combustion.
Combustion, a fascinating process, lies at the very essence of our civilization and industrialization. From the earliest use of hearth fires and cooking stoves, to the development of techniques for ore smelting, glass blowing, porcelain making, and the creation of steam engines, cars, and power plants, combustion has been an integral part of the history of humankind. However, given the current situation where global warming and air quality deterioration are linked to carbon dioxide and pollutants produced by combustion, it has become crucial to contemplate the future role of combustion in our societies and explore how to transition towards a sustainable combustion paradigm.
Julien Blondeau
Julien Blondeau received his degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) in 2005. He started his career as a design engineer at Tractebel Engineering, for nuclear and combined cycle power plants, before joining back the team of Pr. Jeanmart at UCL in 2008, as a teaching assistant. His Ph.D. thesis on biomass combustion was developed in collaboration with Laborelec, the research center of ENGIE, where he started working in 2012 as an expert, and then as a Technology Manager, in the fields of combustion, flue gas treatment, and emission monitoring. In 2016, he was appointed as a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), in the fluid mechanics and thermodynamics research group FLOW to proceed with his research on experimental combustion.
Julien Blondeau is associate professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Brussels, at the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Brussels Faculty of Engineering (BRUFACE). He is also head of the research group Thermo and Fluid dynamics (FLOW) and co-head of the research group at the Brussels Institute for Thermal-fluid systems and clean Energy (BRITE). Between 2015 and 2016, he was Manager of a team of 13 colleagues (4 technicians, 6 engineers and 3 PhD students), carrying out research and expertise services in the field of combustion, flue gas treatment and emission monitoring for heat and power production, inside and outside the ENGIE group.
Alessandro Parente
Alessandro Parente obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of Pisa, Italy. Subsequently, he has been a Research Associate at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Senior Research Associate at the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, and Assistant Professor and Professor (since 2019) at Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
He is interested in renewable synthetic fuels and advanced combustion technologies, computational fluid dynamics, validation and uncertainty quantification, reduced-order models and digital twins.
Alessandro Parente is currently Vice-Dean for Transition, Social Impact and Business Relations at the Faculty of Engineering, Université Libre Brussels, Belgium. He is also Professor at the Department of Aero-Thermo-Mechanics at the Faculty of Engineering, Université Libre in Brussels. Parente holds numerous teaching activities as a professor at the Department of Electromechanical Engineering and the École Polytechnique of the Université Libre in Brussels, Belgium.
In both 2021 and 2023, his papers, Stationary Combustion Systems and Low Carbon Combustion Technologies colloquium and Numerical Combustion, were selected for the 38th and 39th International Combustion Symposium, respectively.
Alessandro Parente has been co-organiser and organiser of many scientific meetings and conferences. In October 2023, he co-organised a series of conferences on Machine Learning for Fluid Mechanics with the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics at the Université libre in Brussels.
Fabio Pinna
Fabio Pinna holds a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. After a brief stint at AVIO to work on the European Vega launcher, he moved to Belgium to attend the Diploma Course at the Von Karman Institute (VKI), to further specialize in fluid dynamics. He obtained a PhD in Aerospace Technology, also at ‘La Sapienza’ and the Von Karman Institute.
In 2017, Fabio Pinna became Associate Editor for Mathematics and Computers in Simulation journal for the IMACS Association, entering its Board of Directors as Treasurer in 2021. Since 2020 he is Co-founder and President of the Belgian chapter of AIRIcerca. In 2022, he completed a Master’s degree in Business and Administration at the Solvay Brussels School, undertaking a new position as technical project manager at Septentrio, dealing with GNSS (positioning) technology.