European energy policy pursues the objective of a sustainable, competitive and reliable supply of energy. In 2007, the European Commission adopted a proper energy policy for Europe supported by several documents and included an action plan to meet the major energy challenges Europe has to face. A farsighted diversified yearly mix of energies was suggested to countries, aiming at increasing security of supply and efficiency, but a wide and systemic view of energy interchanges between states was missing. In this paper, a Small-World methodology of analysis of Interchange Energy-Networks (IENs) is presented, with the aim of providing a useful tool for planning sustainable energy policies. A proof case is presented to validate the methodology by considering the European IEN behaviour in the period of economical crisis. This network is approached as a Small World Net from a modelling point of view, by supposing that connections between States are characterised by a probability value depending on economic/political relations between countries.

European energy policy pursues the objective of a sustainable, competitive and secure supply of energy. In 2007, the European Commission adopted an energy policy for Europe, which was supported by several documents on different aspects of energy and included an action plan to meet the major energy chal- lenges Europe has to face. A farsighted diversified yearly mix of energies was suggested to countries, aiming at increasing security of supply and efficiency, but a wide and contemporary view of energy interchanges between states was not available. In a previous work of the same authors, energy import/ export interchanges between European States were used to develop a geographic overview at one- glance. In this paper, the enhanced Interchange Energy Network (IEN) is investigated from a model- ling point of view, as a Small-World Net, by supposing that connections can exist between States with a probability depending also on economic/political relations between countries.

Residual stresses occur in many manufactured structures and components. Large number of investigations have been carried out to study this phenomenon and its effect on the mechanical characteristics of these components. Over the years, different methods have been developed to measure residual stress for different types of components in order to obtain reliable assessment. The various specific methods have evolved over several decades and their practical applications have greatly benefited from the development of complementary technologies, notably in material cutting, full-field deformation measurement techniques, numerical methods and computing power. These complementary technologies have stimulated advances not only in measurement accuracy and reliability, but also in range of application; much greater detail in residual stresses measurement is now available. This paper aims to classify the different residual stresses measurement methods and to provide an overview of some of the recent advances in this area to help researchers on selecting their techniques among destructive, semi destructive and non-destructive techniques depends on their application and the availabilities of those techniques. For each method scope, physical limitation, advantages and disadvantages are summarized. In the end this paper indicates some promising directions for future developments.

Sustainability is one of the biggest challenges of this century either for the environment or economical growth. The required cultural shift needs challenging action that will involve deeply software and hardware aspect of manufacturing processes. In this paper, the software part of the matter is addressed by proposing a product centric ontology, in which concepts of product, processes and resources are associated to functions and sustainable manufacturing knowledge. The aim is to design a knowledge-based system that, simulating a sustainable manufacturing expert, is able to automatically identify change opportunities and to propose alternatives on the basis of the existing production scenario.

This paper proposes an approach for facilitating systems interoperability in a manufacturing environment. It is based on the postulate that an ontological model of a product may be considered as a facilitator for interoperating all application software that share information during the physical product lifecycle. The number of applications involved in manufacturing enterprises may in fact refer to the knowledge that must be embedded in it, appropriately storing all its technical data based on a common model. Standardisation initiatives (ISO and IEC) try to answer the problem of managing heterogeneous information scattered within organizations, by formalising the knowledge related to product technical data. The matter of this approach is to formalise all those technical data and concepts contributing to the definition of a Product Ontology, embedded into the product itself and making it interoperable with applications, thus minimising loss of semantics

The pollution caused by fuel combustion either for mechanical or electrical energy generation purposes is nowadays one of the most important environmental issues. It has been proven that combustion emissions, particularly those from cars and trucks, are linked with severe damages to the environment and human health. Along with the environmental problems, is necessary to consider that fossil resources are declining and their exploitation is getting more and more expensive. Bioenergy represent a sustainable solution for energy generation. Bioenergy is renewable energy made from plant-derived organic matter, collectively termed "biomass". Biomass-based energy sources are potentially carbon dioxide neutral and recycle the same carbon atoms. Life cycle assessments are reported to evaluate the net environmental impacts of biofuels. The term biofuel refers to liquid or gaseous fuels for the internal combustion engines that are predominantly produced from biomass. Biofuel policy might capitalize on the production of biofuels supporting rural economic development and sustainable agriculture. Amongst biofuels pure plant oil (PPO) has been investigated. This paper sets out to review the state of the art for PPO use as fuel in diesel engines, based on a wide literature review.

Aim of this work is to present a model of an intelligent short term demand side management system (DSM) based on a distributed measurement and management data system. The system is designed to improve the profitability of modern self-production energy plants reducing the power consumption and maintaining the same comfort level for users. The DSM problem is modeled as an auction based multi-agent system. The proposed system is composed of a sensor network and a central processing unit. Each network node is handled by an agent and it is able to regulate the power consumption of a single environment (in this work a room of a public building). Each agent reacts to a new critical condition entering in competition with the others to gain the access at a shared limited resource. The competition is regulated by an auction based system. As the first experimental results are showing, the proposed system can be the consumer’s key to maximize the profitability of the self-production energy plants

This work presents an intelligent demand side management (DSM) system modeled according to an auction based multi-agent system (MAS). The system is designed to improve the sustainability of energy self-production systems thanks to energy saving features while guaranteeing the maintenance of the user's desired comfort level. The proposed system is composed of a sensor network and a central processing unit. Each network node is handled by an agent and it is able to regulate the power consumption of a single environment (e.g., a room). The first live tests were carried out within a public building. Results seems promising for maximizing the sustainability as well as the profitability of self-production energy systems

The ZERO Project is aimed to demonstrate that the use of energy variable is a useful tool to redefine the structure of both the individual building and its installations and the organization of a whole neighborhood where each element (buildings, equipment, infrastructure) are in a position to communicate with each other using the technology provided by the ICT sector. The activities aim to provide fast-prototyping, instrumentation, methodologies and equipment for material characterization of new components in the field of energy efficiency, microgeneration, renewables and, in general, of energy production systems dimensioned on the end user needs (energy hubs, district heating/cooling, etc.).

The quality assessment of manufacturing operations performed to obtain given flat surfaces is always a problem of comparing the substitute model (approximating the features of the true manufactured part) to the nominal specifications, at any stage of the manufacturing cycle. A novel methodology, based on applications of classical tools of Calculus of Variations, is here presented with the aim of assessing the output quality of manufactured flat surfaces based on the information available on transformation imposed by technological processes. By assuming that any manufacturing process operates under equilibrium states, the proposed variational methodology allows to account for the traces left by different stages of manufacturing processes. A simple two-dimensional case is here discussed, to give the flavor of the methodology and its future potential developments.

Energy source management in networked enterprises is one of the crucial tasks of recent times: different energy requests as well as distribution among node-enterprise due to variety of production loads and duties exchanges may in fact bring to un-optimal energetic balance of the network. The idea of optimal balancing of energy sources within a set of nodes of an enterprise network, even though temporarily cooperating, by endeavoring a systemic perspective is the rationale of the present paper. A methodology for the optimal dispatch of energy sources in hybrid as well as isolated energy systems has been devised to this aim. The core of the methodology is based on the formulation and solution of a nonlinear discrete optimization problem aimed at optimizing input and output time trajectories for a set of combined power-generation and storage technologies. The proposed approach is general enough to be susceptible of implementation in any network of enterprises to optimize the energy dispatching.

The paper proposes a methodology for the optimal dispatch of energy sources in hybrid and isolated energy systems. The proposed approach is based on the formulation and solution of a nonlinear discrete optimization problem aimed at optimizing input and output time trajectories for a set of combined generating and storage technologies. Loads and interruptible loads are among controlled variables, and are modeled according to their interruption costs. The approach is general enough to be applied to any hybrid system configuration and was developed having in mind the complex hybrid system architectures comprising several competing storage technologies (battery, pumping, and hydrogen). Test results are aimed at showing the feasibility of the proposed methodology, comparing optimal trajectories to suboptimal system behavior given by load-following strategies.

This paper presents design considerations for a low altitude short endurance electric powered ultralight aircraft with solar panels. The paper focuses on the conversion of the ultralight propulsion system from endothermic into electric, discarding the mechanic and dynamic issues from the design, and addressing the sizing consideration principally on the energy management system components. A tool is presented to optimize the choice of the battery and the panel mass.

This paper surveys the proposed solutions for the design of an ultra-light Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, investigating the requirements for the components of the structure. In particular this paper focuses on the electrical components of the project, showing a brief review of the single objects and their applicability for the design of a Solar Powered Airplane. The aim of this paper is to offer a starting point for researchers who wants to approach the design of electric drives for solar powered airplanes, giving basic information about the state of the art of the UAV projects and the requirements for the power system management elements.

This paper surveys the proposed solutions for the design of an ultra-light Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, showing the most recent advances in technology for the power system of the design. In particular this paper focuses on the electrical components of the project, showing a brief review of the single objects and their applicability for the design of a Solar-Powered Airplane. The aim of this paper is to collect all the useful information for people who wants to begin a design process for an ultra light aerial vehicle with electric propulsion system and a solar energy conversion source, giving basic information about the state of the art of the UAV projects and the requirements for the power system management elements.

In this paper the authors present a model suitable to convert ultralight airplanes propulsion system from endothermic into electric, focusing only on the power management issues, discarding the mechanical and dynamic ones. The model developed represents a tool to correctly size the propulsion and energy management system of ultra-light aircrafts designed for short endurance flights. The authors performed several experiments to validate the model and to verify the efficiency of the designing tool.

The purpose of the invention is to provide a process for the recovery of raw materials fro multilayer artifacts. The process involves cryogenic conditioning of the materials to be recovered and exploits the different thermal and elastic behaviour of different layers of different material.

A modular, self-supporting structural element for house building construction is described, which is provided whit mechanical constraining means for the dry mutual connection with at least one second modular structural element. The modular structural element has a variable density along at least one reference direction. A building structure comprising a plurality of structural elements which are constrained to each other by said constraining means and a process for the construction of the building structure are also described.

The purpose of the invention is to provide a process for the recovery of raw materials fro multilayer artifacts. The process involves cryogenic conditioning of the materials to be recovered and exploits the different thermal and elastic behaviour of different layers of different material.

The purpose of the invention is to provide a process for the recovery of raw materials fro multilayer artifacts. The process involves cryogenic conditioning of the materials to be recovered and exploits the different thermal and elastic behaviour of different layers of different material.