Salvatore Vitale

Experience

• 

  Delft University of Technology

  Nov 2013 - Dec 2017

  PHD Researcher

  As a researcher of the Propulsion and Power group, I devise fluid-dynamic design strategies for improving the current low efficiencies of small turbomachinery applied to next-generation renewable energy technologies. To this end, I design, implement and test state-of-the-art numerical methods to: 1. accurately simulate the complex 3D flow phenomena around multi-row turbomachinery blades ( CFD methods)2. efficiently compute the sensitivities of certain flow performance parameters w.r.t. the flow characteristics and, eventually, w.r.t. the shape of the blades (Adjoint methods)3. effectively parametrize the shape of 3D aerodynamic objects such as blades and wings (Computer Graphics methods)I investigate the use of these three computational tools coupled together and linked with different optimization algorithms in order to identify the best strategies to automatically obtain the optimal shape of the blades that maximize the turbomachinery efficiency. Typically, this also requires the determination of smart approaches to post-process large amounts of simulation data.I am also involved in other research projects which are either the supervision of master or bachelor students during their thesis or collaborations with other researchers and colleagues in multi-disciplinary topics.During this period, I have had many opportunities to effectively share and communicate my research findings by publishing in renown scientific journals, and by presenting at different scientific conferences and in meetings with industrial partners. Furthermore, I have been given the great chance to lecture aerospace master students on the basis of my research topic. Minder weergeven

• 

  SU2: The Open-Souce CFD Code

  Jun 2014 - Nov 2017

  Software Developer (Volunteer)

  SU2 is an open-source CFD suite with more than 100000 downloads from all around the world. The software is developed using both C++ and Python, and parallel computing capabilities are obtained with the MPI protocol. The high level of abstraction and modularity, pursued with an extensive use of the Objective-Oriented Programming paradigm, makes SU2 an ideal platform for prototyping and test new computational methods. Attracted by this possibility, some computational scientists volunteered to develop the suits, and this has rapidly brought SU2 to the cutting-edge of CFD simulations.In line with my research position at TU Delft, my main task, as SU2 developer, is to design and test computational methods applied to improve the fluid-dynamic performance of turbomachinery (e.g., jet engines). To this purpose, I extended the software to solve advance shape-optimization problems for any kind of turbomachinery architecture. Besides my research purposes, I routinely collaborate with other developers to brainstorm, design and implement new features, and to constantly improve and maintain the consolidated capabilities of the software. In addition, I often participate in tasks such as code review, code documentation, assisting users, etc., to always guarantee that the entire SU2 community gets the best experience out of the code. Minder weergeven

• 

  Stanford University

  Jul 2014 - Aug 2014

  Guest Researcher

  During my visiting period in the ADL group of Prof. Alonso, I collaborated withother researchers to extend CFD computational methods to simulate fluids (e.g., siloxanes)which typically obey to complex thermo-physical models. This work was presented in 2015 at the 22nd CFD AIAA conference in Dallas, and it also represented my first contribution to the development of the SU2 open-source CFD code.

• 

  University of Kaiserslautern

  Aug 2017 - Sept 2017

  Guest Researcher

  I started my collaboration with the group of Prof. Gauger back in 2015, after meeting him at a conference. Since then, I have regularly worked with his group (remotely or by visiting them in Kaiserslautern) on the development of adjoint methods for the optimal shape design using Algorithmic Differentiation techniques. This collaboration has been key to me for reaching all the objectives of my research project, and the success of it is demonstrated by the different works we have coauthored.

• 

  Shell

  Feb 2018 - Jan 2019

  Scientific Software Engineer & Scrum Master

  As contractor via Micheal Bailey Associates

• 

  ING

  Apr 2019 - now

  IT Dev Engineer