Gianni Cassoni
Microgravity propellant sloshing · in-orbit refuelling & servicing
The interactive model above couples six-degree-of-freedom spacecraft motion, propellant dynamics and compliant capture in an in-orbit refuelling manoeuvre, exposing the coupled rigid-body, fluid and contact response directly in the browser.
About
I am a PhD candidate developing models of microgravity sloshing for in-orbit refuelling and servicing. My work spans semi-analytical formulations for capillary sloshing and a coupled OpenFOAM–MBDyn framework for ullage-impact loads on spacecraft structures, backed by high-performance computing on CINECA Leonardo. I also supervise thesis students in technical work and research planning.
Thales Alenia Space & Roma Tre University
PhD Candidate. Semi-analytical capillary sloshing models and a coupled OpenFOAM–MBDyn framework for ullage-impact loads; thesis-student supervision.
Politecnico di Milano
Fellow Researcher. Rotorcraft fleet forecasting to 2050, ATTILA tiltrotor aeroelastic flutter (with Leonardo, NLR, DLR), and rotorcraft–pilot coupling data analysis.
Research highlight
Curvature-corrected sloshing spectra for microgravity. Classical slosh models assume a flat interface. In microgravity, surface tension dominates and the equilibrium meniscus is strongly curved, shifting the natural frequencies and mode shapes. The demo above evaluates a reduced-order model built from a Young–Laplace equilibrium and a modal eigen-solve, then time-steps the coupled rigid-body + slosh dynamics live in your browser. Featured update on LinkedIn.
Selected publications
- Cassoni, G., Serafini, J., Gennari, F., & Masarati, P. (2026). Coupled Fluid–Multibody Simulation of Ullage Impact Loads on Spacecraft. Preprint, under review at Multibody System Dynamics. DOI
- Cassoni, G. Curvature-corrected sloshing spectra for cylindrical tanks in microgravity. Preprint (2026)
- Cassoni, G., Cocco, A., Tamer, A., Zanoni, A., & Masarati, P. (2024). Rotorcraft stability analysis using Lyapunov characteristic exponents estimated from multibody dynamics. CEAS Aeronautical Journal, 15(3), 703–719. DOI
- Cassoni, G., Zanoni, A., Tamer, A., & Masarati, P. (2023). Stability analysis of nonlinear rotating systems using Lyapunov characteristic exponents estimated from multibody dynamics. Journal of Computational and Nonlinear Dynamics, 18(8), 081002. DOI
- Trevisi, F., Cassoni, G., Gaunaa, M., & Fagiano, L. M. (2026). Concurrent aerodynamic design of the wing and the turbines of airborne wind energy systems. Wind Energy Science, 11(1), 195–216. DOI
- De Vita, P., Cassoni, G., Morandini, M., Masarati, P., Fonte, F., Favale, M., & van’t Hoff, S. (2026). Numerical interpretation of whirl flutter in a tiltrotor wind-tunnel model using mid-fidelity aerodynamics and mechanical friction. CEAS Aeronautical Journal. DOI
- Cassoni, G., Gennari, F., Serafini, J., & Masarati, P. Curvature-Corrected Sloshing Spectrum via Diffeomorphism of the Zakharov–Craig–Sulem Formulation for Microgravity Applications. NODYCON 2026, Rome, Italy, Sep 20–23, 2026.
- Cassoni, G., Nerattini, A., Colella, A., Gennari, F., Serafini, J., & Masarati, P. On the CFD Fidelity Requirements for Assessing Classical Slosh Models in On-Orbit Servicing Regimes. ESA GNC & ICATT, Seville, Spain, Sep 28–Oct 2, 2026.
- Cassoni, G., Madonna, D. P., Colella, A., Gennari, F., Serafini, J., & Masarati, P. Reduced-Order Modeling of Propellant Sloshing via Differential Variational Inequalities for On-Orbit Refueling Docking Missions. 77th International Astronautical Congress, Antalya, Türkiye, Oct 5–9, 2026.
- Cassoni, G., Cocco, A., Tamer, A., Zanoni, A., & Masarati, P. (2023). Tiltrotor whirl-flutter stability analysis using the maximum Lyapunov characteristic exponent estimated from time series. AIDAA XXVII International Congress (2023), vol. 37, pp. 30–33. DOI
- Zanoni, A., Cassoni, G., Talamo, C., Marchesoli, D., Zilletti, M., Colombo, F., & Masarati, P. (2024). An uncertainty propagation approach to collective bounce rotorcraft–pilot couplings analysis. 80th Annual Forum, Vertical Flight Society (2024). DOI
- Cassoni, G., Zanoni, A., Tamer, A., & Masarati, P. (2022). Stability of rotorcraft ground resonance by estimating Lyapunov characteristic exponents from multibody dynamics. ASME IDETC/CIE 2022. DOI
Awards & competitive funding
100,000 CPU core-hours on Leonardo Data Centric and 10,000 GPU-hours on Leonardo Booster for high-performance studies on microgravity sloshing and reduced-order modeling.
Technical skills
Research interests
Beyond spaceflight fluid dynamics, I am drawn to computational nonlinear dynamics — how organized motion persists in systems governed by simple rules, and when a high-dimensional system genuinely admits a faithful low-dimensional description. The same thread runs through periodic orbits and limit cycles, quasi-periodic tori, bounded chaos, and localized coherent structures — from rotorcraft stability to fluid–structure dynamics to continuous cellular automata like Lenia.
Recurrence & coherent structures
A recurrent or coherent object can be recognized by applying an evolution operator and measuring a residual: how far the state fails to close on itself, possibly after a symmetry or in a moving frame. One language covers exact periodic motion, quasi-periodic near-returns, bounded chaotic recurrence, and local coherent structures — read together with Floquet multipliers and Lyapunov exponents to tell them apart.
When is a reduced model actually closed?
I study when a compressed feature evolves on its own, weakly coupled to the unresolved degrees of freedom, through a closure residual — a forward-pass–only diagnostic. It turns “is this reduced description valid?” into a number, and travels from Lenia gliders and fluid–structure features to activation-steering directions in large language models on a single consumer GPU.
Contact
Como, Italy · open to collaboration on microgravity fluid dynamics, reduced-order modeling and coupled CFD–multibody simulation.