Last week, members of our research group travelled to Dortmund, Germany, to take part in the International Conference on Screw Machines (ICSM 2026), held at TU Dortmund University from 8–10 September. Held every two years and hosted by the university’s Chair of Fluidics, ICSM has long been one of the key meeting points for the global screw machine community, bringing together researchers, manufacturers and industry partners to discuss the latest developments in design, simulation, testing and application of screw machines.

This year’s programme covered a wide range of topics, from heat pumps and refrigeration to hydrogen and vacuum technology, and — as always — gave our team a valuable opportunity to present our latest work, exchange ideas with colleagues from across the field, and reconnect with familiar faces from the wider screw machine community.

We were proud to contribute seven papers to this year’s conference, spanning simulation, experimental testing, sensing, material selection and rotor design:

• System simulation of a food and beverage process plant including mechanical vapour recompression via twin-screw machines using GT-SUITE and GT-SCORG Matteo Luzzi (Gamma Technologies GmbH), Doug Petrik and Dig Vijay (Gamma Technologies LLC), and Ahmed Kovacevic (City St George’s, University of London)
• KAIrAA: A Hybrid Data-Driven and Thermodynamic Framework for Performance Prediction and Preselection of Ammonia Screw Compressors Abhishek Kumar (City St George’s, University of London / Kirloskar Pneumatic Company Ltd.), Sejal Rokade (Kirloskar Pneumatic Company Ltd.), and Hamid Abbasi (City St George’s, University of London)
• Experimental Investigation of Lubricant Degradation and Compressor Performance in an Oil-Injected Air Twin-Screw Compressor Adna Peco, Szymon Paprocki, Panicos Kyriacou and Ahmed Kovacevic (City St George’s, University of London)
• Measurement of Operational Clearances, Casing Strain, and Temperature in Oil-Free Screw Compressors Using Eddy Current Probes and Fibre Bragg Grating Sensors Anurag Kishan (City St George’s, University of London / Howden Compressor, Chart Industries Company), William Milligan (Howden Compressor, Chart Industries Company), Ahmed Kovacevic and Fabian Matthias (City St George’s, University of London)
• Characterising Leakage Flow in Internally-Geared Screw Compressors M. Read (City St George’s, University of London)
• Material Selection for Rotors in Water-Lubricated Screw Compressors Hamid Abbasi, Ahmed Kovacevic (City St George’s, University of London), David Buckney (Mayekawa UK Ltd.), Hossein Keshtkar and Nikola Stosic (City St George’s, University of London)
• Influence of Rotor Profile Characteristics upon Leakage Mechanism and Performance of Screw Compressors Hossein Keshtkar, Nikola Stosic, Halil Lacevic, Hamid Abbasi (City St George’s, University of London), David Buckney (Mayekawa UK Ltd.), and Ahmed Kovacevic (City St George’s, University of London)

Together, these contributions reflect the breadth of our group’s research — from computational simulation and rotor design through to experimental testing and advanced sensing techniques — and reinforce our ongoing collaborations with industry partners including Gamma Technologies, Kirloskar Pneumatic, Howden Compressor (Chart Industries) and Mayekawa UK.

Among those attending was Halil Lacevic, who took part in his new capacity as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Reflecting on the conference, Halil said:

Our thanks go to the organisers at TU Dortmund University’s Chair of Fluidics for hosting another excellent conference, and to all our co-authors and industry partners for their continued collaboration. We look forward to the next edition of ICSM.