Mick Casey has been Professor of Thermal Turbomachinery in Stuttgart University in Germany from 2003, and has now retired early from this position at the end of March 2011. Prior to this he worked in the compressor industry for 25 years with both Sulzer Turbo and Rolls-Royce. During the last eight years he has also worked part-time as a director and as a turbomachinery consultant for PCA. During this period he has been actively involved in many of the developments in the radial compressor design tools within PCA, including the development of the general purpose through-flow code Vista TF, and other preliminary design, geometry and optimisation tools. Together with other staff within PCA he has produced a long list of publications based on this work, many of which have appeared in the major turbomachinery journals and conferences.
A special highlight for him in 2010 was being elected to become a Fellow of ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers). The citation for this award not only recognises his personal achievements as a turbomachinery engineer over his whole career but also mentions the excellence of his research and teaching in Stuttgart University, and the consultancy activities within PCA. Most recently he was also awarded the “Edwin Walker Prize” of the IMechE (Institution of Mechanical Engineers) for the best paper on a power industries mechanical engineering subject published by the Institution in 2010. This work was carried out with one of his undergraduate students in Stuttgart and deals with the extrapolation of turbocharger compressor characteristics to low pressure ratios and high flows. He also won this prize in 2009 for a paper with his research assistants in Stuttgart on the performance and internal flow structures in steam turbines at extremely low flows.
PCA are extremely pleased to announce that with his retirement from Stuttgart he will now take on a larger role within PCA and be more intensively involved in our consultancy work and development projects and in disseminating knowledge through journal and conference publications and training. His wide experience covers axial flow fans and compressors - both industrial and aero gas turbine applications - steam turbine research, CFD, design tools and turbomachinery preliminary design correlations but his main personal interest remains in the area of the aerodynamics and design of centrifugal compressors. He will be based in Zürich, Switzerland, continuing to act as ambassador for PCA in the German-speaking countries.