Francesco Cambuli attained the degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1994 and the PhD in Mechanical
Design in 1998, both from the University of Cagliari (Italy). Since 2003 he has held the role of assistant
professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DIMECA, now DIMCM), University of
Cagliari, becoming associate professor in 2022.
In 1994 he spent six months as a Visiting Researcher at the R&D Laboratory of Woods Ltd , Colchester
(UK), mainly analyzing in an anechoic chamber the acoustic performance of industrial fans. In 1997 he
worked as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Applied Mathematics, State University of Florida,
Tallahassee (FL) under the supervision of Prof. CKW Tam, in a research focused on non-reflecting
boundary conditions for computational aeroacoustics. In 1999 he started a two years research fellowship
at the DIMCM on computational methods in aeroacoustics.
Author of more than 40 publications, the research activity is focused in the field of Turbomachinery,
developed with experimental and numerical (CFD) approaches. The current research activity is mainly
aimed at experimentally evaluating the performance of the Wells turbine, a device used for collecting
energy from sea waves, with tests carried out in the Wells turbine/OWC chamber simulator available in
the DIMCM turbomachinery laboratory. Still in the field

of turbomachinery and, in particular, for the
Wells turbine, the numerical fluid dynamics analysis is aimed at optimizing the blade profiles and
identifying the main sources of aerodynamic losses in the turbine rotor. A recent research topic concerns
the use of commercial pumps in operation as turbines in PHES (Pump Hydro Energy Storage) systems.
In this context, since January 2022 he is the research coordinator for the DIMCM with funds from a
private company, as external advisor in the European project NESOI (Horizon 2020 GA 864266)

(last modified September 2023)