Report on ICDL 2022, University of Seville, Spain, May 29–June 2, 2022
The 21st IEEE International Conference on Dielectric Liquids (ICDL 2022), chaired by Pedro Ángel Vázquez, was celebrated between May 29 and June 2, 2022. The conference took place at the Higher Technical Engineering School (ETSI) of the University of Seville (Spain). The ETSI is located on the island of La Cartuja, in Seville. The venue was built as the Plaza de América pavilion in the Universal Exposotion organized in Seville in 1992. At that time, it hosted representations from several countries in Latin America. Today, it is the seat of one of the most important engineering schools in Spain. The ETSI belongs to the University of Seville, where more than 60,000 students work and learn every year. The conference co-chair was Prof. Philippe Traoré, of Institute PPRIME and University of Potiers (France).
ICDL 2022 was originally scheduled to take place in 2021. As with so many things in the last two years, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the organizing committee to adjust. For us, it was crucial for the ICDL to be an in-person conference. That is why we decided, along with the ICDL IAC, to move the conference to late spring in 2022. Fortunately, the rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines allowed international travel to resume at the beginning of 2022. Thanks to that, we were able to welcome to Seville 90 participants from 22 countries and 4 continents. More than 100 abstracts were sent to ICDL 2022, and 86 of them were accepted for presentation. About a dozen colleagues could not travel due to COVID-19 restrictions (from China, Japan, or India) or due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (from Russia). They sent videos and posters to be shown at the conference. Although ICDL 2022 was an in-person conference, we set up a broadcasting system, and these colleagues were able to virtually attend the conference sessions. Remote oral presenters were also able to answer questions from the audience.
ICDL is fully sponsored by the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society (DEIS). The aim of ICDL is to get in contact world experts on dielectric liquids from both academia and industry. The main topics of ICDL 2022 were EHD and fluid dynamics; basic properties and fundamental studies; electrical discharges and breakdowns; ester liquids and high voltage equipment. The applications discussed in the conference cover a great range of fields: heat enhancement by pumping liquids in microgravity, theoretical analysis of flow stabilities, aging assessment of insulating liquids using partial discharges, design of liquid insulation in high voltage transformers, and many more. This year the support of Cargill has been particularly important for the conference.
In this edition, the Hans Tropper Lecture was given by Professor Armando Francesco Borghesani of the University of Padua (Italy). Professor Borghesanni has made important contributions in a great range of fields, such as critical point phenomena, rheology of coal-based slurries, plasma etching of semiconductors, energetics and dynamics of electrons and ions in dense noble gases and liquids, and many more. The title of his presentation was “Charge Transport in Dense Noble Gases (and more).” Also, two prizes for the best student oral presentation and one prize for the best poster presentation were awarded at the closing ceremony.
As part of the social program, participants could enjoy a private visit to the Reales Alcázares of Sevilla, a beautiful example of Muslim architecture and the oldest royal palace in Europe still in use. As a curiosity, this palace has been used as the setting of several movies and TV shows, such as, for example, Game of Thrones.
The conference was honored by the presence of Professor Wübbenhorst, editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation (TDEI). At the closing ceremony, Prof. Wübbenhorst announced that a special issue on liquid dielectrics will appear in the TDEI in August 2023. Prof. Massimo Pompili will be the editor of this special issue. In accordance with IEEE policy, papers that have been published in any conference proceedings cannot be republished. Therefore, authors of the 2022 IEEE ICDL were strongly advised to significantly expand and enhance their conference paper version prior to submission to this special issue of the IEEE TDEI.
At the end of the conference, it was announced that the next ICDL will be held at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, in 2013. This edition will be chaired by Prof. Jamal Yagoobi, head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at WPI.
