HSZG hosts international conference

On behalf of the German National Committee of the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam (IAPWS)  , the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences organized the "2016 IAPWS Meetings" conference in cooperation with TU Dresden, Ruhr University Bochum and the VDI Society for Energy and the Environment.

This annual conference of the IAPWS took place from September 11 to 16, 2016 at the Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe in Dresden. The organizing team of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering was led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Hans-Joachim Kretzschmar, also Deputy Chairman of the German National Committee and President of the IAPWS.

109 IAPWS members and guests from Australia, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey and the USA took part. The conference was opened by the Rector of the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. phil. Friedrich Albrecht. 

Five working groups presented, discussed and evaluated current projects in the fields of thermodynamic state variables and transport properties of water vapor, water, ice, seawater, humid air and other mixtures with water, as well as power plant chemistry. The resulting documents were adopted as international standards, supplementary standards and guidelines. The algorithms described therein are used worldwide in calculation programs for the simulation, optimization and online monitoring of machines, apparatus and systems in energy, process and supply engineering.

Among other things, the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences reported on a new method developed at the Department of Technical Thermodynamics for the rapid calculation of material data in complex process simulations such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD). This method was declared an international standard as an IAPWS guideline.

As part of the conference, the symposium "Steam, Water and Aqueous Mixtures in Energy and Process Engineering" took place on September 14, 2016. The symposium, which was open to experts independent of the IAPWS, was opened by the State Secretary of the Saxon State Ministry of Science and the Arts, Uwe Gaul. Scientists reported on current research and development work in the fields of material value thermodynamics as well as energy, process, supply and refrigeration technology. The participants were then invited to a technical excursion to DREWAG - Stadtwerke Dresden GmbH.

As a result of this conference, which was rated as extremely successful by the participants, the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences was able to tap into further potential for future cooperation and the initiation of international research.

Next year, the IAPWS conference will take place in Kyoto, Japan. The 2017 annual meeting of the German National Committee of the IAPWS will take place on March 17, 2017 at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg.

Further information can be found on the website www.iapws.de.