Highly accurate measurements

At the^“18th International Conference on the Properties of Water and Steam” (^18th ICPWS), held June 23–28, 2024, in Boulder, CO, U.S.A., Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Herrmann received the Helmholtz Prize from the “International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam” (IAPWS). He was awarded the prize for “high-precision viscosity measurements of gases and the successful application of the structural optimization method to the correlation of viscosity formulations, including the near-critical region with high accuracy,” the IAPWS announced in a press release.

Dr. Sebastian Herrmann is the laboratory director in the Department of Technical Thermodynamics and a research associate in the Departments of energy system technology and power plant engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. He had already developed his experimental research results as part of his doctoral work at the University of Rostock. Based on his own measurements of viscosity at different temperatures and densities, the engineer, who holds a Ph.D., was able to successfully use the structural optimization method to derive equations for this material property. To successfully apply the structural optimization method to a transport property of liquids and gases, theoretical and empirical approaches were combined here to accurately reproduce the experimental data. The resulting formulations (equations) enable a physically meaningful description of viscosity, even in extreme ranges such as the near-critical region. “The integration of experiment and theory forms the foundation of this research approach, ” explains Dr. Herrmann.

The Helmholtz Prize was awarded to Dr. Herrmann during the^18th ICPWS at the IAPWS “General Meeting.” Immediately following the award ceremony, he presented his results to the audience in a plenary lecture.