The PhD Programme is offered in continuity with the Master's degrees offered by the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, particularly the Energy Transition curriculum of the Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering.
The doctoral program's training program is aimed at achieving the objectives set out in the Dublin descriptors.
The PhD Programme offers a program that combines the fields of engineering, medicine, economics, and law to train researchers and professionals capable of managing research and development projects in areas of strong industrial interest, for the energy transition, and for the sustainability of production systems.
The training and academic plans base on the assumption that contributing to the radical changes that the energy transition will bring in the coming decades requires a highly methodological and multidisciplinary education. The composition of the PhD Board of Professors reflects the programme's focus. The PhD Board of Professors is made up of researchers, both academics and industrialists, from seven disciplinary areas: basic research (02/Physical Sciences, 03/Chemical Sciences), engineering (08/Civil Engineering and Architecture, 09/Industrial and Information Engineering), law (12/Legal Sciences), economics (13/Economics and Statistics), and medicine (06/Medical Sciences).
The PhD Programme also includes transdisciplinary courses to strengthen language, scientific writing, and communication skills in academic, professional, and social contexts, as well as interdisciplinary ones. This increases the ability to integrate diverse disciplinary perspectives, adopting a systemic method of analysing and synthesizing highly complex problems.
The PhD Programme is structured into two curricula:
Energy Transition
The Energy Transition curriculum develops skills for research on energy production, storage, distribution, and use in industrial, tertiary, and residential sectors, energy recovery, CO2 capture and storage, and the development of new materials and models for defining energy strategies.
The methodological skills taught to doctoral students include:
- Methods for the design, optimization, and management of energy conversion, recovery, and storage systems, including those related to the use of renewable energy sources
- Numerical thermo-fluid dynamics
- Chemical-physical modeling of systems and processes
- Decision-making modeling
- Control systems for energy production, distribution, storage, and use, CO2 capture and storage
- New materials for systems (e.g., fuel cells, electrolyzers, batteries) and new energy carriers (e.g., biomethane, hydrogen, biofuels, synfuels)
- Experimental activities for the design, management, and monitoring of systems and processes.
Sustainable Production Systems
The Sustainable Production Systems curriculum develops the skills necessary for the design and management of sustainable products and processes, for the recovery, valorization, and development of materials aimed at reducing raw material consumption and carbon and environmental footprints.
The methodological skills taught to doctoral students include:
- Innovative materials for ecological transition
- Product and process simulation
- Product, process, and system optimization models
- Digital technologies
- Life cycle assessment models for products, processes, services, and the carbon footprint of processes.