The nucleus of SoTiC in 2016 was Bruno Schuermans's Rudolf Diesel Industry Fellowship of the TUM Institute of Advanced Studies giving room for intense cooperation and providing the kick to create something visible and unique at the international level. This lead to the Symposium on Combustion Instabilities (SoTiC).
Right from the beginning, SoTiC had the two unique targets of (1) bringing the rocket propulsion and the gas turbine combustion communities together, and (2) of strengthening links between academia and industry by fostering technical relevance of academic work and transfer of academic results to industry.
SoTiC 2016 developed nicely along these guidelines, a large number of participants in relation to the size of our community came to the TUM, the largest coverage of the topic compared with other conferences was achieved with high quality of the presented papers, and finally an excellent overview of the scientific challenges and successes was provided by the invited speakers in both fields.
After this positive experience we had in mind to repeat the SoTiC biannually, but we did not achieve this goal right away. Instead it took until 2021 for the second edition, partly due to CoViD. Meanwhile Mirko Bothien was also Rudolf Diesel Industry Fellow and he was in a driver’s seat when organising SoTiC 2021. Organising an online conference due to Covid was new to us and it was a challenge, but according to feedback of the community at the end the format we selected worked surprisingly well, very productive, lively and interactive.
Due to the official retirement of Thomas Sattelmayer in 2021 the question “quo vadis SoTiC” came up. Since the Rudolf Diesel Industry Fellows Bruno Schuermans and Mirko Bothien are both active in the greater Zurich area, and Nicolas Noiray has established a strong group at the ETH Zürich it was mutually agreed to do the third edition of SoTiC at the ETH Zürich in Switzerland. And SoTiC 2023 was the start of the biannual rhythm originally planned.
SoTiC 2023 at the ETH-Zürich was perfectly organised. More than 120 thermoacousticians from 15 countries attended outstanding invited talks and 60 high quality technical presentations, indicating an excellent scientific standard of SoTiC. The number of papers and participants 2016, 2021 and 2023 was remarkably constant, revealing the promising future perspective of SoTiC. The meeting at the ETH also provided plenty of networking opportunities and for the first time industry tours were offered.
Matthew Yoko and Matthew P. Juniper received the Best Fundamental Paper Award for their paper “Data-driven modelling of thermoacoustic instability in a ducted conical flame”. The paper "Systematic modulation of the FTF and its effect on thermoacoustic stability" by Eirik Æsøy, Jonas P. Moeck and James R. Dawson received the Best Technical Paper Award.
SoTiC 2025 will be held at the NTNU in Trondheim, Norway with James Dawson in the driver’s seat.