“L’ingegnere” for Ferrari is coming to Trondheim on May 11th to visit SINTEF and NTNU

Legendary Ferrari Formula 1 engineer is coming to Trondheim on May 11^th for an open lecture – and you are invited!

Mauro Forghieri, former Technical Director of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1 Racing Department for a time period of nearly 30 years, will visit SINTEF and NTNU at the Gløshaugen Campus in Trondheim on May 11^th for a series of meetings with researchers and academics focusing on innovation.

Countless innovations from Formula One

The need for continuous development of technically extreme solutions, a requirement to become and stay competitive in Formula One, has resulted over the years in countless innovations across a wide spectrum of scientific disciplines as aerodynamics, propulsion and material technology.

Many of these innovations, originally ideated to win Formula One competitions, have found their way into commercial products for the general public with contributions to energy efficiency and safety as important examples.

Answering questions on innovation

I have recently come in contact with Forghieri and invited him to Trondheim with the ambition to address some important questions about innovation:

• Is extreme competition the perfect (necessary) condition to spur innovation?
• How are innovations created?
• As a result of group work or individual effort?
• Are technical specialists able to innovate or a diverse background is required?

Forghieri, well known in Italy as “L’ingegnere” (The Engineer) and throughout the F1 world as one of the most successful, innovation-oriented and prolific all-round mechanical engineer, will hold an open seminar with the title “30 years of technological innovations in Ferrari F1: methodological approach and lessons learned” (Auditorium EL2 10:00-12:00).

The seminar is open to all. Come early!

Andrea Gruber is part of the The CFD group at SINTEF Energy Research that has more than 30 years of experience in performing numerical modelling of chemically reactive processes in laminar and turbulent flows consisting of single-phase (gaseous fuels combustion) or multi-phase (solid fuels combustion) configurations.