At the "^18th International Conference on the Properties of Water and Steam" (^18th ICPWS), which took place from June 23 to 28, 2024 in Boulder, CO, U.S.A., Dr.-Ing. Sebastian Herrmann received the Helmholtz Prize of the "International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam" (IAPWS). He received the award for "highly accurate measurements of the viscosity 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 a laboratory manager at the Department of Technical Thermodynamics and a research assistant at the Departments of Energy Systems Engineering and Power Plant Engineering in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. He developed his experimental research results as part of his doctorate at the University of Rostock. Based on his own measurements of viscosity (toughness) at different temperatures and densities, the doctor of engineering was able to successfully use the structural optimization method to create 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 the physically meaningful description of viscosity, even in extreme ranges such as the near-critical region. "The combination of experiment and theory forms the basis 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 was able to present his results to the auditorium in a plenary lecture.