Francesco Nicoletti

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• Doctor of Engineering
• PostDoc Position at University of Calabria

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is often overlooked, yet a poorly maintained environment can lead to significant health issues and reduced concentration and productivity in work or educational settings. This study presents an innovative control system for mechanical ventilation specifically designed for university classrooms, with the dual goal of enhanci...

Building energy consumption constitutes a significant share of global energy demand. This study examines how a prefabricated building, often subject to challenges in maintaining comfort, can meet the nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) standards in Italy. This study fills the gap in the literature on prefabricated buildings that meet nZEB standards,...

In the residential building sector, a sustainable human-environment relationship can be achieved by encouraging both the use of renewable sources and the enhancement of energy efficiency in technical systems and building envelopes. This article performs an energy analysis to evaluate the reduction in energy demand attained by installing two Trombe...

The energy transition represents an essential process necessary to drive a shift towards a sustainable and balanced human-environment interaction. Within the residential building sector, this objective can be pursued by promoting both the utilization of renewable sources and the energy efficiency improvement of technical systems and the building en...

The day-ahead photovoltaic electricity forecast is increasingly necessary for grid operators and for energy communities. In the present work, the hourly PV production is estimated using two models based on feedforward neural networks (FFNNs). Most existing models use solar radiation as an input. Instead, the models proposed here use numerical weath...

Historical and cultural heritage must be preserved and protected from deterioration. In particular, the integrity of structures is threatened by inadequate maintenance, exceptional events (such as fires and floods), and exposure to increasing air pollution. In addition, indoor environments may provide favorable conditions for colonizing harmful age...

Solar shading devices, such as Venetian blinds, are effective in controlling heat and light gain in buildings. This study focuses on developing an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to automate the management of Venetian blinds in order to find a balance between energy savings and visual comfort. Typically, automatic control strategies rely on cut-off...

In-situ measurement of wall thermal conductance is a complex task due to the transient conditions resulting from the variability of environmental factors. The literature offers numerous methods, each based on different assumptions, which are not always valid. This paper aims to compare the accuracy and test duration of the main methods by testing t...

Evaporative towers are the most widely used systems for cooling water in industrial processes. These systems, however, are characterized by high energy and water consumptions. Therefore, technologies and operating strategies for optimization of these devices are highly recommended. The heat exchange, which takes place inside an evaporative tower is...

Natural lighting in building environments is an important aspect for the occupants' mental and physical health. Furthermore, the proper exploitation of this resource can bring energy benefits related to the reduced use of artificial lighting. This work provides some estimates of the energy that can be saved by using a lighting system that recognise...

This work involves the development of an advanced solar shading control algorithm with the aim of reducing energy requirements and improving visual comfort. The proposed control system is based on IoT devices that sense the environment and interact with it following real-time intelligence that allows adaptation to changing situations. The designed...

Bioclimatic solar greenhouses are passive solar systems of relevant interest in the building sector, as they allow the reduction of energy needs related to air-conditioning. The aim of this work is to analyze the thermal behavior of a bioclimatic solar greenhouse attached to a residential building. It is equipped with photovoltaic solar blinds (SPB...

Lower prices for photovoltaic systems lead to the spread of building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). In this paper, a simple method is proposed to evaluate the electrical power produced by Solar Photovoltaic Blinds (SPB). The equations allow to assess slat mutual shading and view factors and are applicable to any slat inclination, any orientation...

The production of electricity from photovoltaic panels has experienced significant developments. To manage the energy flows introduced into the electricity grid, it is necessary to estimate the productivity of PV panels under the climatic conditions. In this study, a photovoltaic panel is modelled from thermal and electrical points of view to evalu...

Heat pumps combined with photovoltaic (PV) system with batteries will allow environments to be heated/cooled sustainably. The framework of this paper is a household with a boiler in which the user intends to purchase a PV-battery system and an air–water heat pump (AWHP). A procedure is defined to carry out the combined sizing of the three component...

Shading devices are used to control solar radiations that penetrate into the occupied environment through the windows with the aim of ensuring visual comfort and saving the building’s energy consumption. Venetian blinds are commonly employed for the practicality and ease of application. However, occupants often do not change slat orientation causin...

Windows have a considerable influence on the thermal balance of buildings. The aim of the present work is to evaluate the performance of a photochromic window (PCW) in terms of building's energy demands and natural lighting. In these windows, a fundamental role is played by the solar transmission coefficient, which can change depending on the incid...

Daylight in workplaces is necessary for the psychophysical health of the occupants and, if its level is adequate, it can reduce electrical costs of artificial lighting. This study presents some realistic estimates of the electrical savings that could be achieved from artificial lighting. The scenario is to replace the classic lighting system with o...

In this work a Solar Thermal Generator is analysed from an energy point of view. It is a dish collector that is part of a concentrating solar grid system. The analysed plant is used for the generation of low enthalpy thermal energy as an integration to the hot water production plant for some student residences of the University of Calabria (Italy)....

In this study, a simplified calculation method to evaluate the thermodynamic performance of two solar tower power plants of 50 MW is proposed. The systems consist in an open air Brayton cycle and a Brayton-Rankine combined cycle. The electricity produced, the average annual efficiency of the heliostats field-receiver system, the efficiency of the t...

Among the new technologies for the exploitation of the solar source, double-sided photovoltaic panels represent a valid high efficiency solution. These are latest generation photovoltaic panels that allow you to capture solar radiation even from the back and to obtain a greater production of electricity compared to traditional single-sided panels....

The spread of near-Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) involves the employment of high performant air-conditioning plants where renewable sources can be integrated easily. In this context, heat pumps appear as a promising solution given their ability to exploit aerothermal, hydrothermal and geothermal sources and to supply both heating and cooling loads w...

Glazing surfaces strongly affect the building energy balance considering heat losses, solar gains and daylighting. Appropriate operation of the screens is required to control the transmitted solar radiation, preventing internal overheating while assuring visual comfort. Consequently, in the building design phase, solar control systems have become c...

This paper aims to give a new analysis approach of the crude oil fouling phenomenon through CFD. Heat exchangers are analyzed in order to evaluate the effects of the presence of turbulators on thermal resistance. In particular, it will be investigated if fouling increases in presence or in absence of mechanical inserts inside tubes for heat exchang...

Air coolers in an industrial plant are often a fundamental device to guarantee optimal conditions for processes. Evaporative air coolers are used to cool an air flow through the injection of water. They are also used to cool water in industrial process. They exploit a closed and pressurized circuit which implements cooling by forced exchange with a...

Linear Fresnel Plants are composed of flat mirrors that reflect direct radiation towards a fixed receiver tube parallel to the reflectors. In traditional plants, mirrors are able to rotate around a single axis. This type of solar tracking system generates high losses at its ends. In the paper a new configuration is studied in which the mirrors plac...

In Linear Fresnel solar concentration systems there are some energy losses due to the arrangement of the primary reflectors. An important loss of geometric type is caused by the fact that mirrors have only one degree of freedom. Therefore, the accuracy of the solar tracking, at the ends of the collector, cannot be guaranteed, especially if the heig...

In the present work, the law of motion of reflectors for a concentrating solar Linear Fresnel plant is geometrically analyzed. Firstly, a method for optimally distributing the primary reflectors on the ground is proposed. Furthermore, the mathematical procedure used to identify the law of motion that the mirrors must follow to reflect solar radiati...

In this paper the geometrical, optical and thermal study and simulation of a concentrator Linear Fresnel Reflector is carried out. Plant performances are analyzed through a mathematical calculation model that allows energy simulations to be made to estimate the productive effectiveness of the plant and to detect the temperature profiles of the vari...

In this paper the geometrical, optical and thermal study and simulation of a concentrator Linear Fresnel Reflector is carried out. Plant performances are analyzed through a mathematical calculation model that allows energy simulations to be made to estimate the productive effectiveness of the plant and to detect the temperature profiles of the vari...