We meet Thermal Turbomachines or rather their "products" everywhere in our everyday live. In our cars they put additional thrust to the engines, they drive planes and helicopters, ships, tanks.... and they operate in electric power stations 24 hours a day, nearly 365 days a year, converting thermal energy from a combustion process to mechanical energy driving an electric generator.

So Thermal Turbomachines are Compressor, Gas and Steam Turbines, Turbo Chargers and Aero Engines. They have a wide range of application and as you can imagine there are a lot of them. With regard to the environmental pollution, increasing energy consumption and decreasing resources it is necessary to raise efficiency and minimise the fuel consumption of Thermal Turbomachines. Further the costs are an important factor, why the fuel consumption has to be reduced. For example the gain of an airline is about 1 to 2 % of the fuel costs. For raising the efficiency a better understanding of the flow through Turbomachines, of the secondary effects and their interaction is necessary. And that is what we do.

With our Know How in flow measurements, especially in optical measurements like LDV, Stereoscopic PIV, Thermography, and so on, we provide the data and the knowledge to increase the efficiency of Thermal Turbomachines. In many EU- projects with several partners from industry (MTU Aero Engines, Rolls Royce Germany, DLR, Volvo Aero, Snecma, Onera Turbomeca, Avio, Nuovo Pignone which belongs now to GE, and so on) we have proven our competence in this area. (Within this projects it is possible to write a PhD). Furthermore we develop new measurement techniques, for example the use of 2 Laser Vibrometers to measure density fluctuations in a single point of the flow field.

In the last years we were mainly concentrated on the flow in Transsonic Turbomachines, but since 2004 we expand. For reducing environmental pollution, the fuel consumption, weight of aero engines new combustion concepts and the problems coming with them like humming have to be investigated. Hence we build an combustion chamber test facility which should be finished in the next years.

We are not only investigating and optimising parts of Turbomachines but also the whole Cycle. To accommodate the raising discharge of carbon dioxide we have created the Graz Cycle- A zero emission Power Plant with highest efficiency (Patent of the Institute).

Furthermore we develop new codes for flow calculation that meets reality better. The newest models for turbulence, transition and so on are used in this codes.

As you can see in our name we are also engaged in Machine Dynamics. Industry often want us to do vibration measurements with our Laser Vibrometers. For example we did measurements on tail rotor shafts, heat recovery boilers, and many more.