THE ORGANIZATION AND ECONOMICS OF ITALIAN SERIE A: A BRIEF OVERALL VIEW

Introduction – 1. The Institutions of Italian Football – 2. Ownership and listing of Italian Serie A Teams – 3. Management of stadia – 4. Some Economics of Italian Football League – 5. Costs out of control. Financial fragility of Italian teams – Conclusions – ReferencesCalcio, Serie A, sport institutions

MHD mixed convection flow in the WCLL: heat transfer analysis and cooling system

In the Water-Cooled Lithium Lead (WCLL) blanket, a critical problem faced by the design is to ensure that the breeding zone (BZ) is properly cooled by the refrigeration system to keep the structural materials under the maximum allowed temperature by the design criteria. CFD simulations are performed using ANSYS CFX to assess the cooling system performances accounting for the magnetic field effect in the sub-channel closest to the first wall (FW). Here, intense buoyancy forces (Gr = 10^10) interact with the pressure-driven flow (Re = 10^3) in a MHD mixed convection regime. A constant magnetic field, parallel to the toroidal direction, is assumed with intensity B = 4.4 T. The walls bounding the channel and the water pipes are modeled as perfectly conducting. The magnetic field is found to dampen the velocity fluctuations triggered by the buoyancy forces and the flow is similar to a forced convection regime. The PbLi heat transfer coefficient is reduced to one-third of its ordinary hydrodynamic value and, consequently, hot-spots between the nested pipes and at the FW are observed, where TMax = 1000K. Optimization strategies for the BZ cooling system layout are proposed and implemented in the CFD model, thus fullling the design criterion

Numerical study of laminar magneto-convection in a differentially heated square duct

Magnetohydrodynamic pressure drops are one of the main issues for liquid metal blanket in fusion reactors. Minimize the fluid velocity at few millimeters per second is one strategy that can be employed to address the problem. For such low velocities, buoyant forces can effectively contribute to drive the flow and therefore must be considered in the blanket design. In order to do so, a CFD code able to represent magneto-convective phenomena is required. This work aims to gauge the capability of ANSYS© CFX-15 to solve such cases. The laminar flow in a differentially heated duct was selected as validation benchmark. A horizontal and uniform magnetic field was imposed over a square duct with a linear and constant temperature gradient perpendicular to the field. The fully developed flow was analyzed for Gr = 10^5 and Hartmann number (M) ranging from 10^2 to 10^3. Both insulating and conducting duct walls were considered. Strong dampening of the flow in the center of the duct was observed, whereas high velocity jets appeared close to the walls parallel to the magnetic field. The numerical results were validated against theoretical and numerical results founding an excellent agreement

Magnetohydrodynamic flow and heat transfer around a heated cylinder of arbitrary conductivity

The interaction of the liquid metal with the plasma confinement magnetic field constitutes a challenge for the design of fusion reactor blankets, due to the arise of MHD effects: increased pressure drops, heat transfer suppression, etc. To overcome these issues, a dielectric fluid can be employed as coolant for the breeding zone. A typical configuration involves pipes transverse to the liquid metal flow direction. This numerical study is conducted to assess the influence of pipe conductivity on the MHD flow and heat transfer. The CFD code ANSYS CFX was employed for this purpose. The fluid is assumed to be bounded by rectangular walls with non-uniform thickness and subject to a skewed magnetic field with the main component aligned with the cylinder axis. The simulations were restricted to Re = (20, 40) and M = (10, 50). Three different scenarios for the obstacle were considered: perfectly insulating, finite conductivity and perfectly conducting. The electrical conductivity was found to affect the channel pressure penalty due to the obstacle insertion only for M = 10 and just for the two limiting cases. A general increment of the heat transfer with M was found due to the tendency of the magnetic field to equalize the flow rate between the sub-channels individuated by the pipe. The best results were obtained with the insulating pipe, due to the reduced electromagnetic drag. The generation of counter-rotating vortices close to the lateral duct walls was observed for M=50 and perfectly conducting pipe as a result of the modified currents distribution

Three-dimensional MHD flow and heat transfer in a channel with internal obstacle

The magnetohydrodynamic flow and heat transfer of a liquid metal in a channel past a circular cylinder with walls of non-uniform conductivity were investigated. The applied magnetic field was transversal to the forced flow (x-direction) and coplanar with the obstacle, featuring non-null components in both the z- and y-directions. Moreover, the cylinder was displaced by the duct centreline toward the bottom wall and its surface was at uniform temperature, so that a ΔT was present between the obstacle and the fluid at the inlet. Non-uniform thickness for the duct-bounding walls is considered which leads to the promotion of jets close to the less-conductive surfaces. The flow features and heat transfer for this case were numerically investigated for different values of the Reynolds number (20 ≤ Re ≤ 80) and Hartmann number (0 ≤ Ha ≤ 100). Their effects on the flow features, pressure drop and heat transfer are analysed and discussed in detail in the present paper. The additional pressure drop introduced by the cylinder presence is found to be independent by Re and decreasing with Ha. Enhanced heat transfer is observed for an increasing Ha with NuMHD/Nu = 1.25. at Ha = 100 due to the augmented mass flow rate in the bottom sub-channel

DEMO WCLL BB breeding zone cooling system design: analysis and discussion

The Water-Cooled Lithium-Lead (WCLL) Breeding Blanket (BB) is a key component in charge of ensuring Tritium self-sufficiency, shielding the Vacuum Vessel and removing the heat generated in the tokamak plasma. The last function is fulfilled by the First Wall (FW) and Breeding Zone (BZ) independent cooling systems. Several layouts of BZ coolant system have been investigated in the last years in order to identify a configuration that guarantee Eurofer temperature below the limit (823 K) and good thermal-hydraulic performances (i.e. water outlet temperature 601 K). A research activity is conducted to study and compare four configurations, which rely on different arrangement of the stiffening plates (i.e. toroidal-poloidal and radial-poloidal), orientation of the cooling pipes (i.e. horizontal, vertical) and PbLi flow path. The analysis is carried out using a CFD codes, thus a threedimensional finite volume model of each configuration is developed, adopting the commercial ANSYS CFX code. The objective is to compare the BZ cooling system layouts, identifying and discussing advantages and key issues from the thermal-hydraulic point of view, also considering feedbacks from MHD and neutronics analyses. The research activity aims at laying the groundwork for the finalization of the WCLL blanket design, pointing out relevant thermal-hydraulic aspects

Supercritical carbon dioxide applications for energy conversion systems

In the present paper, the possibility of increasing the thermodynamic efficiency of an electric energy production plant, by using an advanced energy conversion system based on supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO2) as working fluid, has been analyzed. Since the supercritical carbon dioxide cycles are being considered as a favorable candidate for the next generation of nuclear power plant energy conversion systems, a lead cooled fast reactor has been selected as reference in the present analyses. The main aim of the present study is to compare two different S-CO2 thermal cycles applied on the conversion system of a nuclear power plant. The reference Lead cooled Fast Reactor (LFR) used for the present analyses is the ALFRED reactor, which has a thermal power of 300 MW and it is considered the scaled down prototype of the industrial European Lead Fast Reactor (ELFR). Thermodynamic cycles selected for the present study are a Recompression Cycle and a Brayton Cycle with Regeneration. Each of them has been analyzed under several design conditions regarding the maximum pressure and the regeneration coefficient. Among different design conditions, the solution allowing the maximization of the overall efficiency has been identified. Thermodynamic analyses have been carried out with GateCycle™ v. 6.1.1, which is a General Electric software able to predict design and off-design performance of power plants

Ancient Schwannoma of the Cauda Equina: our experience and review of the literature

Ancient schwannomas (AS) are exceedingly rare variant of common schwannomas (CS). Only two cases involving the cauda equina region have been previously reported in literature. AS are typically associated with a higher histological degree of degenerative changes (Antoni B areas). It is of peculiar importance, according to our opinion, to outline that, because of their extremely slow growth (which explains the increase of the degenerative changes in respect to the CS) and their typical soft consistency in respect to their standard counterparts, AS usually imply an even better prognosis

Anterior-to-Posterior Migration of a Lumbar Disc Sequestration. Surgical Remarks and Technical Notes about a Tailored Microsurgical Discectomy

Extrusion of disc material within the spinal canal complicates up to 28.6% of lumbar disc herniations. Due to the anatomical "corridors" created by the anterior midline septum and lateral membranes, relocation occurs with an anterior and anterolateral axial topography. Posterior migration is an extremely rare condition and anterior-to-posterior circumferential migration is an even rarer condition. Its radiological feature can be enigmatic and since, in more than 50% of cases, clinical onset is a hyperacute cauda equina syndrome, it may imply a difficult surgical decision in emergency settings. Surgery is the gold standard but when dealing with such huge sequestrations, standard microdiscectomy must be properly modified in order to minimize the risk of surgical trauma or traction on the nerve roots

3+1D Massless Weyl spinors from bosonic scalar-tensor duality

We consider the fermionization of a bosonic free theory characterized by the 3+1D scalar - tensor duality. This duality can be interpreted as the dimensional reduction, via a planar boundary, of the 4+1D topological BF theory. In this model, adopting the Sommerfield tomographic representation of quantized bosonic fields, we explicitly build a fermionic operator and its associated Klein factor such that it satisfies the correct anticommutation relations. Interestingly, we demonstrate that this operator satisfies the massless Dirac equation and that it can be identified with a 3+1D Weyl spinor. Finally, as an explicit example, we write the integrated charge density in terms of the tomographic transformed bosonic degrees of freedom