Prof. Enzo Zanchini obtained his master’s degree in civil engineering, cum laude, at the School of Engineering of the University of Bologna in 1975. He began his research activity at the Institute of Technical Physics of the University of Bologna in 1976, as winner of a fellowship of the National Research Council (CNR). He was Assistant Professor of Technical Physics from 1977 to 1983, Associate Professor of Technical Physics from 1983 to 1999, Full Professor of Industrial Technical Physics from November 1999 to November 2018, Adjoint Professor of Applied Thermodynamics in 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, of Solar and Geothermal Systems in 2019-2020, 2020-2021, 2021-2022, of Exergy Analysis in 2022-2023, at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the School of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Bologna. At present, he is Alma Mater Professor and teaching tutor at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna. He was Head of the Department of Energy, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering of the University of Bologna from November 2009 to October 2012, and Coordinator of the Bachelor and of the Master Program in Energy Engineering from November 2013 to March 2016.
He was visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984 (five months) and in 1985 (three months). He was a member of the Board of Professors of the following Ph. D. Programs of the University of Bologna: Ph. D. Program in Nuclear Engineering from 1983 to 1989; Ph. D. Program in Technical Physics from 1990 to 1999; Ph. D. Program in Energy, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from 2000 to 2013; Ph. D. Program in Mechanics and Advanced Engineering Sciences from 2014 to 2019.
Prof. Zanchini devoted his research activity to the following fields: foundations of thermodynamics and mechanics; exergy analysis; thermodynamic systems in electric or magnetic fields; unsteady heat conduction in solids; forced, natural and mixed convection; energy efficiency of buildings; air-source and ground-coupled heat pumps; vertical ground heat exchangers.
From 1976 to 1995, the research activity of Prof. Zanchini concerned mainly the optimization of flat plate solar collectors, the rigorous development of the foundations of thermodynamics, the properties of thermodynamic systems contained in electric or magnetic fields. The principal results of the researches developed in this period are: a general proof of the energy additivity; a rigorous deduction of Gibbs equation for systems contained in electric or magnetic fields; a rigorous proof of Gibbs phase rule; the proof that the definition of mechanical stress tensor cannot be applied to a system contained in an electric or magnetic field.
From 1995 to 2006, the research activity of Prof. Zanchini regarded mainly unsteady and hyperbolic heat conduction in solids, as well as forced, natural and mixed convection in ducts and cavities. In the field of hyperbolic heat conduction, Prof. Zanchini found several analytical solutions of Cattaneo-Vernotte's equation and showed that this equation can yield violations of the second law of thermodynamics even if considered in the framework of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. In the field of laminar forced convection, Prof. Zanchini determined the class of thermal boundary conditions which yield a fully developed temperature profile and studied the effect of viscous dissipation on the asymptotic value of the Nusselt number. In the field of mixed convection, Prof. Zanchini pointed out, by analytical studies, the effects of viscous dissipation and of a variable fluid viscosity on the velocity field and on the friction factor.
From 2006, the scientific activity of Prof. Zanchini regarded basic research on the foundations of thermodynamics and of mechanics, and applied research on the heat transfer between buried pipelines and the environment, on the energy retrofitting of buildings and the design of zero-energy buildings, on the dynamic simulation and optimization of heat pump systems and vertical ground heat exchangers. The main results of the basic research are: a new operational definition of entropy; a rigorous definition of mass in classical mechanics and special relativity; a rigorous procedure for the evaluation of the molar exergy of chemical fuels. The main results of the applied research are: the analysis of the effects of the groundwater movement on the long-term performance of borehole heat exchanger fields; polynomial expressions of the dimensionless thermal response factors of some borehole heat exchanger fields; the development of MATLAB codes for the dynamic simulations of air-to-water and of ground-coupled heat pump systems; correlations to determine the mean fluid temperature and the outlet temperature of U-tube borehole heat exchangers; a new cylindrical model of U-tube borehole heat exchangers; a new numerical method to determine the thermal response factors of borehole heat exchangers with isothermal external surface; the calculation of fluid-to-ground thermal response factors of single-line bore fields; the comparison between different finite-element models for the simulation of borehole heat exchangers.
Prof. Zanchini was responsible of the research group of the University of Bologna in the European Projects "HERB - Holistic Energy Retrofit of Residential Buildings"(2012-2016) and "RD-SBES-R - R&D in Sustainable Building Energy Systems and Retrofitting"(2011-2015), both leaded by the University of Nottingham. He was member of the Editorial Board of the International Journals Future Cities and Environment (Springer), and Energies (MDPI).
Prof. Zanchini is author or coauthor of more than 140 scientific papers, more than 80 of which are published in international journals. Among the most important journals on which Prof. Zanchini published one can quote, for instance: Physical Review B, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Energy, Applied Energy, Renewable Energy, Energy and Buildings, Geothermics, ASME Journal of Heat Transfer, International Journal of Thermal Sciences, Energies, Foundations of Physics, European Journal of Physics, Physica Scripta.
