IGTE/Institute/History

History

Today's Institute of Fundamentals and Theory of Electrical Engineering was founded in 1950 as the Institute of Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering and Theoretical Electrical Engineering and was headed by Peter Klaudy until 1973. Research focussed on superconducting cables and the experimental investigation of unipolar machines. With the new University Organisation Act of 1975, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering was founded, which until then had been part of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In this year, Kurt Richter took over the management of the institute and initially focussed his research activities on high-frequency and microwave technology. The institute was renamed the Institute for Fundamentals and Theory of Electrical Engineering (IGTE) in June 1983. Kurt Preis carried out his first work on the numerical calculation and simulation of electromagnetic field problems at the institute as early as 1979, resulting in the EleFAnt2D programme. It was installed in 1982 at the company Elin-Union (now Siemens Transformers) and shortly afterwards at the company Spezielektra (later Trench-Austria) in Linz and has been used ever since. From 1981, Herbert Stögner and Kurt Preis developed EleFAnT3D for the calculation of three-dimensional fields. This programme was used by Simon van der Meer's working group to calculate the frontal field in the dipoles of the antiproton collector ring during the discovery of the Z and W bosons (weak interaction), for which Simon van der Meer and Carlo Rubbia were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983. The IGTE software later helped in the detection of the Higgs boson, for which Francois Englert and Peter Higgs received the Nobel Prize in 2013.  

The intensive research work in the field of numerical field computation led to increasing international visibility and recognition of the IGTE from the mid-1980s onwards. In 1985, Graz was chosen as the venue for the most important conference in the field of computational electromagnetics, the COMPUMAG (International Conference on the Computation of Electromagnetic Fields) for 1987, the organisation of which was taken over by the IGTE. Also in 1985, the first IGTE Symposium on Computational Methods in Electromagnetics and Multiphysics was held in Graz, which took place for the 21st time in 2024. The development of numerical methods for 3D field simulations was significantly enriched in 1987 with the appointment of Oszkar Bíró from the Technical University of Budapest, and the IGTE team established itself as one of the leading international research groups in the scientific field of computational electromagnetics in the 1990s.

In addition to excellent basic research, this also led to numerous industrial co-operations: Siemens Transformers Linz and Weiz, CERN, Trench Austria, Siemens-Matsushita Deutschlandsberg and Munich (now both Epcos), VAI Linz, Böhlerwerk, Mikron Gratkorn (later Philips, now NXP), EVU and Trafounion Nürnberg (now Siemens Transformatorwerk), Infineon, etc. After Kurt Richter's retirement, Kurt Preis took over the management of the institute until 2004, after which Oszkar Bíró headed the IGTE until 2019. During this time, in addition to numerous FWF and FFG-funded research projects, the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Multiphysical Simulation, Calculation and Design of Electrical Machines, which he established, should be mentioned. The laboratory was funded 50% by the Christian Doppler Research Association and 50% by the industrial partners ELIN Motoren GmbH, Traktionssysteme Austria GmbH, AVL List GmbH and Andritz Hydro GmbH. The research activities in the Christian Doppler Laboratory have significantly expanded the breadth of research at IGTE. Areas such as structural mechanics, acoustics, heat transfer and their coupling have been added to the already established topics of computational electromagnetics. 

With the appointment of Manfred Kaltenbacher as head of the institute in 2020, the area of multiphysical simulation in particular was further expanded and the open source finite element software openCFS developed by him and many employees is now used in research and teaching.

Open Source Finite Elemente Software openCFS

In addition, a new laboratory for the characterisation of magnetic and acoustic materials was set up and the Technical Acoustics department was established, in which fundamental developments in modelling and simulation methods (sound generation from flows, novel MEMS loudspeakers based on digital sound reconstruction, acoustic metamaterials, etc.) as well as applications in the medical field (human voice, hydraulically driven knee prostheses) and in the technical field (flow-through and flow-around components in the areas of air conditioning and traffic as well as new concepts in the field of active noise barriers) were developed. Particular mention should be made of the acquisition of the BMK Endowed Professorship on Noise Impact Research: Competence Center for Traffic Noise and Health Noise Impact Research, which was filled by Christian Adams on 1 December 2023 and which will be financed for the first five years by the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and the companies Arbeitsgemeinschaft Österreichischer Verkehrsflughäfen, ASFINAG Autobahnen- und Schnellstraßen-Finanzierungs-Aktiengesellschaft, AVL List GmbH, KTM Forschungs und Entwicklungs GmbH, Linz Linien GmbH, ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG, Wiener Linien GmbH & Co KG. Afterwards, it will become a regular professorship at TU Graz. In addition, many FWF projects (HumanVoice - Numerical computation of the human voice source; AKURAD - Fluid-Structure-Acoustic Interaction of Enclosed Radial Fans) and FFG projects (FlowNoiseInEmobiles - Aeroacoustics of confined flows in electric vehicles; VirtualProsthesis - Development of a validated numerical simulation model for the prevention of flow noise in prostheses; ECHODA - Energy Efficient Cooling and Heating of Domestic Appliances; DESID - Design of electro sheet processing for improved efficiency of e-mobile drives; HQ-AutoMat - High-quality manufacturing of pre-material for automotive components). In addition, the Collaborative Research Centre – TRR361/F90: CREATOR – Computational Electric Machine Laboratory (DFG/FWF Collaborative Research Centre CREATOR - CRC - TRR361 / F90 - at TU Darmstadt, TU Graz and JKU Linz), the Graz Electromagnetic Compatibility Lab (TU Graz and Silicon Austrian Labs) and the TU Graz LEAD project Aortic Dissection should also be mentioned. Furthermore, many industrial projects were carried out with well-known companies such as AMS AG, Andritz Hydro GmbH, Infineon Technologies AG Munich, MAGNA STEYR Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH & Co KG, Miba eMobility GmbH, Siemens Energy Austria GmbH - Transformers Linz and Siemens Healthcare GmbH.
 

Kontakt
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Institut für Grundlagen und Theorie der Elektrotechnik
Inffeldgasse 18
8010 Graz

Tel.: +43 (0) 316 / 873 - 7251
Fax: +43 (0) 316 / 873 - 7751
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