Research Profile

I am a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Aerospace Propulsion (IIND-01/G) at the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Padova, holding the National Scientific Habilitation as Associate Professor in Aerospace Engineering (ASN 09/A1). My research focuses on high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics for aerospace propulsion, with particular emphasis on large-eddy simulation of compressible wall-bounded flows, gas turbine aerothermodynamics, and super/hypersonic flows.

I am the principal developer of URANOS, an open-source, GPU-accelerated compressible Navier–Stokes solver for DNS, WRLES, and WMLES. The current URANOS-2.0 release is optimised for EuroHPC JU pre-exascale systems, including the NVIDIA- and AMD-based architectures, and is available at github.com/uranos-gpu/uranos-gpu. My work has produced over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and has been supported by several competitive grants.

Research keywords: DNS · LES · WMLES · compressible turbulence · shock-capturing schemes · gas turbine aerothermodynamics · hypersonic flows · HPC · GPU

Teaching

2026 – present — Aircraft Propulsion (M.Sc. Aerospace Engineering)
2020 – present — Introduction to Numerical Methods for Unsteady Gas Dynamics (Ph.D. School)

Past Teaching Activities

2023 – 2025 — Machines Fluid Dynamics (B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering)
2022 – 2025 — Advanced Optimization Methods for Machine Thermofluid Dynamics (M.Sc. Mechanical Engineering)
2019 – 2022 — Laboratory of Computational Fluid Dynamics (M.Sc. Aerospace Engineering)

Open Thesis Proposals

ACCADEMIC PATH

Carried out within my research group on the URANOS solver. The topics below are available at M.Sc. level, and are eligible for continuation as Ph.D. projects.

• DNS/WRLES/WMLES of Compressible Flows: External/Internal Aerodynamics
• Numerical Methods for Real and Thermally-Perfect Gases
• Film Cooling Aerothermodynamics in Transonic and Supersonic Regimes

INDUSTRIAL PATH

For students: Thesis projects developed in partnership with an industries on a mutually agreed topic. 
Availability depends on active collaborations; contact me directly.

For companies: I welcome collaborative projects with industrial partners in my areas of expertise, typically structured around an associated M.Sc. thesis/Ph.D.. Topics include, but are not limited to, fluid dynamics, thermofluid dynamics, and the numerical modelling of flows in propulsive/machine components. Each project is defined on a mutually agreed subject, and availability depends on active collaborations, so please contact me directly.

Contact

Email: francesco.devanna@unipd.it ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6627-5451
GitHub: github.com/uranos-gpu/uranos-gpu
Address: Department of Industrial Engineering, Via Venezia 1, 35131 Padova, Italy