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tGreen fac¸ades and walls greatly contribute to reducing solar gains and dispersion through the buildingenvelope. This implies a lower energy load for both heating and cooling and the mitigation of thermal con-ditions in outdoor areas. Despite this, more studies are needed regarding the influence of these systemson the thermal behaviour of insulated fac¸ ades. In this manuscript, we report the results of experimentalresearch carried out on a vertical green wall in a continental Mediterranean climate. The main goal ofthe research is to establish a thickness above which the behaviour of the green fac¸ ade becomes isother-mal and its performance do not improve. To this end, we analyze and evaluate the effect of insulationthickness on the energy performance of a green wall using a new methodology called green fac¸ ade opti-mization (GFO). Comparing the simulations to experimental data, collected in a full-scale experimentalbox during the summers of 2011 and 2012, allowed the model to be validated. The results show that agreen wall acts as a passive cooling system when the fac¸ ade is moderately insulated, up to an insulationthickness of 9 cm, above which more insulation becomes redundant and inefficient

Liquid loading is a common problem affecting hydrocarbon production both in well and pipeline. Pipelines transporting hydrocarbons from the wells to the downstream facilities often come across a hilly terrain, which could be considered the main reason of liquid loading phenomenon. Currently the main technique used to solve the problem is the mechanical pigging. Nevertheless, this technique is not free of risks, in fact when the mechanical pigging is possible, operators and engineers have to deal with several issues. This paper presents an alternative method to deliquify pipelines, by using foamer injection. Even if in its preliminary stage, this research work represents a breakthrough since the feasibility of the method can allow an easier, safer and cheaper solution of the water accumulation in pipelines.The effectiveness of pipeline deliquification treatments by foaming injection is difficult to predict a priori, due to a high number of variables affecting the foam formation and transport within the pipeline. In this paper the issues related to the application of this method are described and some preliminary results on foam formation conditions, obtained on an experimental test bench are presented.

The aim of this paper is to identify a parameterization method that considers existing connections and relationships between traditional indicators of environmental sustainability as a step in combating climate change via urban strategies. A typical Mediterranean city (Ancona, Italy) is investigated with a multi-objective optimization platform called modeFrontier, which uses Pareto optimality. This concept formalizes the trade-off between a given set of mutually contradicting objectives, such as high thermal comfort and low energy consumption, to identify a set of Pareto solutions. A solution is Pareto optimal when it is not possible to improve one objective without deteriorating at least one of the others. The optimization process employs given constraints (for example, meteorological scenarios with high temperature and low winds or morphological building parameters), custom procedural algorithms (recursive algorithms to generate the set of all non-dominated objective parameters), and genetic algorithms (inspired by the natural selection process) to examine a wide urban space and identify interesting relationships among relevant variables for typical summer scenarios. Multi-objective optimizers involve many evaluations of two objectives (i.e., energy consumption and thermal comfort in this study) while considering many analytical constraints. This approach entails a considerably more exhaustive search of environmental variables that can help the urban planning process to mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Three quantitative metrics related to urban morphology and local climate conditions, as well as a thermal comfort indicator (the predicted mean vote), are defined and applied to Ancona to examine the potential for new sustainability in urban design. The results show that two parameters examined-compacity and a building-scale energy indicator-can offer insight when designing comfortable cities, while a citywide energy indicator shows that it is more difficult to find optimal solutions when dealing with the city as a whole. The research serves as a proof-of-concept and the possibility of identifying some local strategies in order to combat the UHI is verified.