Chiara Gastaldi

Chiara Gastaldi is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) at the Polytechnic University of Turin, specializing in mechanical design and machine construction. Her academic career spans multiple teaching roles across bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs, with particular focus on sustainable design, mechanical engineering, and computational methods. She serves on the College of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Automotive Engineering and the College of Biomedical Engineering, contributing to curriculum development and academic governance.

Dr. Gastaldi's research centers on bearings, friction, multiphysics modeling, and numerical modeling, with emphasis on sustainable and circular design approaches. Her work bridges traditional mechanical engineering with modern computational techniques, focusing on practical applications in aerospace engineering, computational engineering, fluid mechanics, and sustainable design. She leads the ISED (Industrial Systems Engineering and Design) research group, driving innovation in model-based systems engineering applied to sustainable product development.

Her recent publications reveal a strong trend toward integrating sustainability principles into mechanical design, particularly through life cycle assessment methodologies applied to human-powered vehicles and circular design strategies. The research demonstrates growing interest in lattice metamaterials, friction modeling, and computational approaches to mechanical design optimization, with applications ranging from turbine blades to hydrogen storage systems.

• ASME Yetep Award (2016)
• ASME Yetep Award (2019)

Dr. Gastaldi actively supervises multiple PhD students working on sustainable mechanical design, lattice metamaterials, and circular economy approaches. Her research portfolio includes significant projects funded by competitive calls and commercial contracts, such as PRIME for predictive maintenance, mechanical design of metal scrap crushing machines, CO2 footprint assessment of vehicle aftermarkets, and dynamic design of turbine blades with friction contacts for renewable energy applications. She also serves as an Associate Editor for the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTION OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS. PART C, JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING SCIENCE and participates in scientific committees including the ASME Technical Committee on Sound and Vibration and the International Committee on Joint Mechanics.

Through the ISED research group, Dr. Gastaldi leads collaborative efforts in industrial systems engineering and design, with particular emphasis on sustainable and circular approaches to mechanical product development. Her team works closely with industry partners on practical applications of advanced mechanical design principles, while also mentoring the next generation of engineers through student teams like Policumbent, which focuses on human-powered vehicle design.