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Maria Romana Alvi finalist at the Young Academics Award 2024
On January 21, 2025 Maria Romana Alvi attended the Finalists Workshop for the Young Academics Award 2024, held in Brdo pri Kranju, Slovenia.This edition of the Alpine Convention's Young Academics Award focused on “Responding to Environmental Changes and Maintaining a High Quality of Life in the Alps” and Maria's master's thesis "Thermal Performance Assessment of an Energy Lining in the Turin-Lyon Base Tunnel", with supervisors Marco Barla and Alessandra Insana, was selected as one of the noteworthy contributions for sustainable development in the Alps.The research highlighted how thermal activation in hot tunnels, such as those in the Alpine region, could harness heat from the surrounding environment. This process has the potential to generate clean energy to meet the thermal needs of local Alpine communities while also reducing the ventilation requirements of the tunnel.
A significant milestone for the Italian Demonstrator of the ARV European project
The first innovative technology in the new building under construction in the Ex-Zuffo parking lot of Trento has been installed by the Rockmech Team within the H2020 ARV project. This cutting-edge technology is based on the thermal activation of the foundation slab and walls (Geothermskin).
Al via il progetto internazionale REGENERATE
Il progetto coinvolge 17 partner accademici e tecnici da tutta Europa e punta a rigenerare il patrimonio sotterraneo esistente per produrre e stoccare energia
Assessing the interaction of an energy tunnel with the underground thermal conditions
Today at the joint ELGIP - EGS UGEG Workshop on "Urban Geology & Geotechnics", the Politecnico di Torino DISEG was represented by Marco Barla and Alessandra Insana who showed the methodology for assessing the interaction of an energy tunnel with the underground thermal conditions in an urban area. The study unveiled the importance of considering the current geothermal use of the subsoil of a metropolitan area when designing a new shallow geothermal system. This allows not to hinder future energy exploitation and optimises its use. The case study investigated is that of the Turin Metro Line 2 which is planned to be thermally activated both in the cut and cover sections, thanks to energy diaphragm walls, and in the TBM tunnel sections, using Enertun segments. The impact of the energy tunnel was shown to be restricted to the depths of the infrastructure bearing a limited extension with respect to the thermally altered zones originating from the open loop systems.
Climate change impacts on landslides in Alpine areas using a machine learning-based approach and detection sensors
Managing climate change impacts on landslides in Alpine areas using a machine learning-based approach and detection sensors. An update on the Rockmech group's ongoing work was presented at the 4th Macao International Conference on Smart City Technologies - Powering Resilient and Sustainable Cities: Innovations in AIOT. To manage the risk associated to destructive natural events in the Alpine areas, whose occurrence is being modified by global warming, the need arises to update susceptibility maps to include climate change effects. An example of a machine learning-based approach has been shown. Based on the identified risk, EWS, such as the new cutting-edge fibre optic-based detection system Optialp, can be successfully implemented to mitigate risk and save human lives. The work prepared by Alessandra Insana, Valerio De Biagi and Amirreza Pourfatollah was presented by Marco Barla as an invited speaker at the conference.
The three days at the University of Macao were also a great opportunity to meet the researchers and PhD students working with Prof. Wan-Huan Zhou and open new opportunities for Polito-UM collaboration.
La galleria anti-ghiaccio
Oggi, su La Stampa e Il Secolo XIX, si è parlato del sistema di anti-gelo geotermico sviluppato nell'ambito del Dottorato di Ricerca di Simone De Feudis, sotto la supervisione dei Proff. Marco Barla e Alessandra Insana ed in collaborazione con Autostrade per l'Italia.
Sfruttando il calore geotermico dell'ammasso roccioso a tergo della galleria Olimpia (Alessandria), si previene la formazione di ghiaccio su una porzione della della corsia di emergenza all'esterno del fornice. A tal fine, la galleria Olimpia è stata attivata termicamente durante i lavori di rinnovo strutturale del rivestimento, risultando così un unicum al mondo nel suo genere.
Dopo aver dimostrato la bontà e la viabilità del sistema in via preliminare (https://iris.polito.it/handle/11583/2989386), i primi risultati della sperimentazione in vera grandezza sono attesi per il prossimo inverno.
The 2024 Aperitivo on the Rocks
The Rockmech team was out for an aperitivo last night to share, meet and enjoy. A very local habit lively interpreted by the today's global nature of the team which includes researchers from China, Colombia, France, Iran and, of course, Italy from North to South. So, not only martini (or vermouth, as we say here) on the rocks but also aguardiente, ayran, moutai and ...what else.
Symbolically, the 2024 group photo is taken in front of the Frejus tunnel monument in the central Piazza Statuto in Torino. It is a pyramid of large stones from the Frejus Tunnel with a Winged Genie at the top. On the various boulders of the fountain, there are also the statues of some Titans killed by the Winged Genius. Following the positivist spirit of the historical period in which the work was made, the statue would be an allegory of the victory of Reason (the Winged Genius) over brute force (the Titans), necessary to build the tunnel. Reinterpreting, it is a nice message also for the world today, thriving between cruel wars where the Reason seems lost.
The Frejus tunnel has rich connections with the research team and the Politecnico di Torino. Built in 1871 the 13,6 km tunnel to connect Torino and Italy to France, is the first tunnel under the Alps and the first in the world to see the use of mechanised systems for excavation such as the pneumatic automatic drilling machine. The pioneering efforts needed to excavate the Frejus tunnel recall the studies on deep excavations, tunnelling, brittle behaviour, and squeezing conditions which are still current topics of researchers of the team together with the current challenges in ground engineering addressing sustainability, energy and climate change.
The timeless connections between the past and the future of engineering and of the Rockmech team of the Politecnico di Torino is probably the take-home message from the nice evening.
A new approach for predicting brittle or ductile failure of rock in deep excavations - Lorenzo Milan PhD defense
Last Monday 1st of July, Lorenzo Milan completed his PhD with the discussion of his work 'A new approach for predicting brittle or ductile failure of rock in deep excavations', under the supervisors Monica Barbero and Mauro Borri Brunetto. The Evaluation Board composed by Marco Barla, Daniela Boldini, Pietro Cornetti, Leandro Alejano and Josè Muralha agreed on an excellent evaluation. Congratulations to Lorenzo by the whole Rockmech team!
XIII IAGIG - Incontro Annuale dei Giovani Ingegneri Geotecnici
Il 7 e l’8 Giugno 2024 il Politecnico di Torino ha ospitato il XIII Incontro Annuale dei Giovani Ingegneri Geotecnici (IAGIG), un’iniziativa intesa a promuovere la discussione di argomenti di Ingegneria Geotecnica in ambito accademico e professionale. L’evento è stato patrocinato dall’Associazione Geotecnica Italiana (AGI) e dal Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Edile e Geotecnica del Politecnico di Torino (DISEG).
Training School on Energy Geostructures
Maria Romana Alvi, Simone De Feudis and Alessandra Insana participated to the training school dedicated to "Energy geostructures: Overcoming barriers to their implementation", organized by COST Action FOLIAGE, that took place in Madrid from the 28 to the 30 May 2024.