At the end of March, Dr. Würz, head of the laminar wind tunnel at the IAG for many years, retired. On this occasion, a farewell ceremony was held on 22.03.2024 with the IAG employees, at which Dr. Würz's great achievements for the IAG were honored.
Some of the former doctoral students supervised by Dr. Würz also took part in the event and enjoyed the reunion with their former supervisor and colleagues.
Mr. Würz began his diploma studies in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Stuttgart a good 45 years ago. After successfully completing his studies, he joined the IAG as a research assistant and initially worked on laminar separation bubbles, which can occur under unfavorable conditions in the flow around airfoils. To this end, he carried out a series of experimental investigations in the institute's laminar wind tunnel (LWT), which was headed by Mr. Dieter Althaus at the time. Mr. Althaus had designed and built the tunnel, which went into operation in 1962, and is considered the "father of the LWT". Over the years, Mr. Würz broadened his field of research to include investigations into the laminar-turbulent transition of boundary layers and summarized his results in his dissertation entitled "Hot-wire measurements on laminar-turbulent flow transition in adjacent boundary layers and release bubbles and comparison with linear stability theory and empirical transition criteria", which he completed in 1995.
After Mr. Althaus retired, Mr. Würz took over the management of the LWT shortly before completing his doctorate. He also continued his successful research work in this role. Particularly noteworthy are the profiles he developed for high-performance gliders, with which top placings were achieved at several world and European championships. In addition, Dr. Würz supervised a number of doctoral theses in his wind tunnel. Due to its outstanding flow qualities with a degree of turbulence of about 0.025%, the tunnel is not only suitable for high-quality research work, but is also in constant demand from companies in the aviation industry and, more recently, increasingly from the wind energy sector for industrial measurements. Customers not only appreciate the high quality of the measurements, but also the care and conscientiousness with which they are carried out by Dr. Würz and his team. As a result, the LWT and its team enjoy a high reputation in the scientific research community as well as among aviation and wind energy companies.
Dr. Würz has contributed enormously to the reputation of the IAG with his research work and the resulting doctorates as well as with his industrial measurements. The Institute is greatly indebted to him for this. We wish him all the best for his retirement, which has now begun, and above all robust health so that he can remain as active as ever for a long time to come.
Mr. Ulrich Deck took over the management of the " Laminar Wind Tunnel" working group as of 01.04. We all wish him much joy and success in his new role and look forward to working with him.
