Engineering

The research groups at the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering cooperate with a large number of industrial and academic partners in Germany and worldwide. The Chair of Mechanics and Robotics was selected in 2010 as a guest institution for the Humboldt-fellow Professor Huafeng Ding of Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao (China). Professor Andrés Kecskeméthy is a member of the scientific board of the German Israeli Foundation as well as editor–in-chief of the international journal Mechanism and Machine Theory. The Institute of Combustion and Gasdynamics (IVG) headed by Professor Christof Schulz is working with Professor Ron K. Hanson (Stanford University) under the auspices of his Humboldt research prize on diode laser spectroscopy. The ZBT led by Professor Angelika Heinzel signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation in Canada and the Korean energy research institute KIER. Several research groups are cooperating with Rheinenergie, Ford and the city of Cologne as part of the colognE-mobil research project. Cooperation with colleagues outside the University of Duisburg-Essen is also organised through research networks such as the International Motor Vehicle Programme (IMVP), and Gerpisa (The International Network of the Automobile). The Research Training Group 1240 (Professor Markus Winterer) was the chief organiser of Symposium T: Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics from Nanoparticles at the Materials Research Society Spring Meeting 2010 in San Francisco.
Outlook
The appointment of new professors in many fields during the last decade has created a variety of new research activities. In the coming years, this research is to be consolidated and developed further in areas such as biomechanics (Chair of Mechanics and Robotics, Professor Andrés 
Kecskeméthy), energy, mobility, water treatment, turbine machines, and nanotechnology. Modeling, simulation and the application of the most advanced experimental methods will play a key role in this context.