| ISCORMA-2 Summary ISCORMA-2 was held in Gdansk, Poland, on 4-8 August 2003, in the Mercure Hevelius Hotel. Some of the participants stayed at the Musician’s Home, the alternate hotel. Gdansk, situated at the Gdansk Bay in the delta of the Vistula River, flowing to the Baltic Sea, the major center of Eastern European culture, academics, and industry, was a perfect location for the conference. The participants were inspired by the old European medieval charm and proximity of Baltic Sea beaches, while enjoying the comfort and convenience of modern accommodations, transportation, and communications. The main goal of the conference, to provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners from industry and academia to gather and share knowledge regarding the causes, behavior, and alleviation of instability phenomena in rotating machinery, was achieved. The five-day program, organized and sponsored by Bently Pressurized Bearing Company, located in Minden, Nevada, USA, gave the participants the opportunity to study the latest theories on the subject in a series of presentations. The Organizing Committee, which included D. E. Bently (Chairman), Z. Gosiewski (Vice Chairman), Organizers, A. Muszynska, R. C. Hendricks, D. P. Fleming, and J. T. Sawicki, worked efficiently during the last year to organize and coordinate the conference tasks. Prof. Gosiewski was responsible to organize all events in Poland and did an excellent job. The conference registration desk, located in the Mercure Hevelius hotel lobby, opened on 4 August and closed on the evening of 7 August. At the desk, the participants met Jeanette Cox, the ISCORMA coordinator who had corresponded with them during the past years. Three more persons, namely Avis Lewis (Jeanette’s sister), Melanie Fish (fiancée of Dean Mathis of Bently Pressurized Bearing Company), and Iwona Gosiewska (a niece of Zdzislaw Gosiewski), efficiently helped Jeanette with the registration and coordination work during the conference. 73 attendees from 21 countries participated in this conference. 67 papers were presented during three days in three parallel sessions. The specific sessions covered topics such as Stability of Rotating Equipment, Diagnostics, Active and Passive Control, Bearing and Seal Dynamics, Fluid Flow Problems, Blade/Blade Disk Dynamics, and General Rotordynamics. Three Keynote Addresses, concerning important current problems in rotating machines, were delivered in a grand auditorium for all participants. Prof. Dr. Giancarlo Genta, from Torino Polytechnic (Italy), discussed the problems of Numerical Modeling and Simulation in Rotor Dynamics. He underlined the necessity of understanding physical phenomena taking place in rotating systems, in order to verify validity of numerical data. The second Keynote speaker, Robert C. Hendricks from NASA Glen Research Center (Cleveland, Ohio), comprehensively reviewed three current aspects of Turbomachine Sealing and Secondary Flows: 1) Customer, Designer, and Research Issues, 2) Rotordynamics Issues in Flow Systems with Small Clearances, and 3) Powerstream Component Support Issues. The third Keynote Speaker, Prof. Dr. Zbigniew Kozanecki from the Technical University of Lodz (Poland), presented trends in development of Unconventional Bearings in Turbomachinery - Modeling and Selected Applications, which included passive and active bearings. Unconventional applications of such bearings encompass specific machine conditions such as high or low temperatures, very high speeds, aggressive working medium, or required cleanliness of the medium. PARTICIPANTS REPRESENTED THE FOLLOWING COUNTRIES:
Each Session of the conference had two Co-Chairpersons to introduce the speakers, lead discussions, and control timing. There was one half hour assigned for each paper together with the discussion, in order to coordinate presentations in three parallel sessions. Each room was equipped with state-of-the-art electronic equipment and a skillful and scrupulous operator to help in facilitating presentations. (These operators were students of Prof. Gosiewski at the Warsaw Military Academy: Marcin Szaro, Wacław Szyszka, and Krzysztof Falkowski.) Each participant received the conference Proceedings (a book of 754 pages and a CD), usable shoulder bag, as well as a special conference gift: amber with an ancient bug inside. The latter is a famous product of Gdansk and the Baltic Sea area. Each piece of amber was encased in a clear box with a magnifying glass on the top to admire this petrified resin, a relic of the past. Several successful social events were held during ISCORMA-2. The conference started with the Welcome Reception at the Mercure Hevelius Hotel. Donald E. Bently, Chairman and CEO of Bently Pressurized Bearing Company, and Professor Zdzislaw Gosiewski from the Warsaw Military Academy delivered the Welcome Addresses. The participants then enjoyed a large variety of drinks and finger foods provided by the hotel. Mr. Gut, Marketing Manager of the Mercure Hevelius Hotel, was especially helpful seeing that we were provided with everything we needed regarding every aspect of the conference. His assistance was greatly appreciated. In both hotels, excellent buffet breakfasts were included in the hotel fees. On 5 August, all conference participants were invited to an outdoor, picnic-like supper on the lawn in front of the Musician's Home. During the supper, a stringed-instrument trio entertained the crowd by playing classical music. On the afternoon of 6 August, some of the participants went on a bus sightseeing tour of the Malbork Teutonic Castle, the European treasure of Class Zero. Malbork is located about 37 miles from Gdansk. The evening ended with a medieval feast next to the Malbork Castle wall. After the conference, there was another tour for the enjoyment and pleasure of the participants -- a one-day trip to Frombork and Elblag. In Frombork, the city where Copernicus completed his oeuvre, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium," (1543) and where he died, the participants visited the related museum and attended the organ concert in the Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary's Ascension. A delicious lunch was served at the restaurant of the recently restored Kadyny Palace. The Elblag city tour completed the excursion. The weather, which at the Baltic shore might sometimes be severe, was excellent, creating perfect conditions for all social activities. The Awards Dinner, included in the conference fee, was held the evening of 7 August in the Mercure Hevelius restaurant. The conference sponsor, Donald E. Bently, funded several precious metal awards: platinum and gold. After having reviewed all submitted papers, the Organizing Committee gave the following awards:
Finally, the last award was not determined by the Organizing Committee, but resulted from voting by the participants at the conference (a "Vox Populi" Award). After each presentation of the paper, the audience participants were asked to evaluate it in a scale from zero to ten. The given lump evaluation criteria included the contents of the paper and the presentation skills of the presenter. The highest score and, therefore, the Best Presentation for the Conference Award was given to Prof. Heinz Ulbrich from Technical University of Munich (Germany) for the paper, "Improvement of Rotor Performance Under Rubbing Conditions Through Active Auxiliary Bearings." Don Bently gave special recognition to Professor G. Genta for his video presentations on "Gyroscopic Effect and Damping in Rotordynamics" and "Dynamic Behavior of Rotors on Anisotropic Supports." During the Awards Dinner, the time and location of the next conference, ISCORMA-3, was announced. It will be held in Cleveland, Ohio, on 19-23 September 2005. Professor Jerzy Sawicki, a member of the Organizing Committee, who will now serve as the Vice Chairman of the Organizing Committee, prepared and gave a PowerPoint presentation on Cleveland and its surrounding area, as the perfect location for ISCORMA-3. Abstracts | Awards | Photos | Summary
|
|---|