WATT e.V. and the Institute of Technical Thermodynamics and Thermal Process Engineering at the University of Stuttgart invited participants to the Thermodynamics Colloquium 2024 in Stuttgart from September 25 to 27, 2024.

The year 2024 marked a special anniversary: 200 years of thermodynamics. Its origins lie in the groundbreaking work of Sadi Carnot in 1824, which laid the foundation for this important science.

Thermodynamics is one of the core disciplines underlying SynTrac research and deals with energy, its conversion and the associated processes. It investigates the principles that govern the behavior of macroscopic systems of many particles, especially with regard to temperature, heat and work. In SynTrac, a wide variety of thermodynamic processes are being investigated, including in particular the processes at interfaces in the exhaust gas flow of engines, the use of suitable materials for heat conduction through functional lightweight structures and the efficient use of the available energy.

The Thermodynamics Colloquium offered a unique platform to discuss these topics with experts from the scientific community.  Once again, this year, there were plenary lectures by renowned scientists such as Prof. Dr. Thomas Rades (University of Copenhagen), Prof. Dr. P. Stephan (TU Darmstadt), Dr.-Ing. Thomas M. Koller (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg) and Dr. rer. nat. Robert Hellmann (Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg), as well as a large number of presentations and poster contributions, which highlighted current research in the field of thermodynamics.

TRR 364 SynTrac was represented at this event by Myles Zabel, who presented his research as part of Project A02 with a poster titled “Analysis of Aircraft Flow Losses on Highly Integrated Transport Aircraft by using Exergy Analysis“ during the poster session on Wednesday evening and discussed it with interested attendees. Together with his colleagues, he is developing a standardized methodology for the calculation of flow losses resulting from the dissipation of mechanical power of the flow and heat dissipation in SynTrac. His work is located at the intersection of thermodynamics and aerodynamics and therefore offered the opportunity to demonstrate the interdisciplinary approach of SynTrac in addition to presenting its scientific findings.

The Thermodynamics Colloquium 2024 was a success and offered exciting insights, current research results and an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas with the scientific community, from SynTrac’s perspective in particular also about the added value that thermodynamics enables at the interfaces to other disciplines.