Politecnico di Torino | Servizi per la didattica

KEYWORD

Area Engineering

Innovative energy solutions for resilient livestock houses

keywords BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE, BUILDING PHYSICS, CLIMATE CHANGE RESILIENCE, TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY

External reference persons Dr. Andrea Costantino (Università Politecnica di Valencia, Spagna)
Prof. Salvator Calvet Sanz (Università Politecnica di Valencia, Spagna)

Research Groups ICTA @UPV (https://icta.webs.upv.es/en/), TEBE

Thesis type DEFINIZIONE PROCESSI, SIMULAZIONE NUMERICA

Description Intensive livestock systems are essential in meeting the current world food demand. These systems are indissolubly bound with climate change. On the one hand, intensive livestock systems are responsible for the emission of a remarkable amount of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) that contribute to climate change. On the other hand, climate change is a threat for intensive livestock systems. Extreme weather events -such as heat waves- have negative consequences on animal health, welfare, and production. The Horizon Europe Re-Livestock project (https://re-livestock.eu/) aims at developing and analyzing new practices to reduce the GHG emissions from livestock systems while making them more resilient to climate changes. Solutions at farm level are being specifically investigated at the Institute of Animal Science and Technology of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), in Spain. A remarkable room for improvement may lie in solutions focused on building envelope and systems.
The objective of this thesis is to propose and evaluate the implementation of innovative solutions at building and energy system level to reduce the GHG emissions from livestock houses and make them more resilient to climate change. The student is expected to carry out a multidisciplinary work (between the Department of Energy of PoliTo and Institute of Animal Science and Technology of UPV) aimed at individuating those innovative solutions and assessing their impact from several points of view. The thesis will be focused on a case study included in Re-Livestock project. The thesis is expected to achieve the following specific objectives:
• Evaluate the current state of the art regarding solutions for decreasing the GHG emissions from livestock houses and reduce livestock heat stress;
• Perform surveys and analyses (including monitored data) on the selected case study to identify possible solutions to be implemented;
• Propose the solutions to decrease GHG emissions and improve animal welfare. The solutions will be numerically evaluated also in future climate change scenarios to provide insights about GHG emission reduction, variation of energy consumption, financial costs, and livestock heat stress.
The student is expected to spend a visiting period at the ICTA (Valencia, Spain) under the supervision of Prof. Calvet and Dr. Costantino to perform part of the tasks of the thesis.