News

Successful Additive Manufacturing Platform Conference 2026

A truly great event, with truly great people! We very much enjoyed the many inspiring insights and fruitful discussions on current advances and future trends in additive manufacturing last week.

Step inside the IMES Lab Facilities – virtually!

Our new Digital Lab Tour gives you direct access to our laboratories, testing facilities, and research infrastructure at ZHAW's Institute of Mechanical Systems (IMES). Explore where cutting-edge engineering research happens—from biomechanics, in…

New Platform Unites Expertise in Quantum Research

The ZHAW School of Engineering is launching the Quantum Lab. This cross-institutional platform focuses on quantum topics and strengthens research in this field. Partners benefit from the expertise of the individual institutes in the field of quantum…

Silicone muscle for more accurate load testing of the shoulder

With the shoulder simulator developed by the Institute of Mechanical Systems, the MyoPlus project-team simulates and measures the loads acting on individual muscle portions of the Deltoid. This helps to understand how the shoulder joint behaves in…

NEW PUBLICATION by Michael Hofmann in Materials & Design

NEW PUBLICATION: Melt pool geometry and process windows in PBF of 316L: Comprehensive single-source dataset and statistical modeling

Visit by the Slovak Embassy Delegation

On 13 January 2026, a delegation from the Slovak Embassy and the Education Directorate visited the School of Engineering.

Winner of to the SAMG Best Student Thesis Award 2025

"Congratulations to the SAMG Best Student Thesis Award 2025! The ZHAW Mechanical Engineering student Gianluca Schmid received the 3rd price at the SAMG Best Student Thesis Award 2025 of the Swissmem Additive Manufacturing Group for his Bachelor…

Winner of an SNSF Spark Grant!

We are very happy to share that Jeremy Genter has been awarded an SNSF Spark Grant! 🎉

Winner of the IIW Kenneth Easterling Best Paper Award 2025

Congratulations to the ZHAW Team for winning the IIW Kenneth Easterling Best Paper Award 2025

Successful PhD Defense – Gabriele Immordino

On 26 August 2025, Gabriele Immordino successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “Data-Driven Modelling of Nonlinear Aerodynamics in High-Speed Aircraft Using Machine Learning,” at the University of Southampton, UK.

Dr. Wilfried Bürzle - New lecturer in the group Light Weight Design

We welcome Dr. Wilfried Bürzle as a new lecturer in the LWD group

Wind Tunnel Campaign with Flexible Model

Ludovica Onofri manufactured and assembled three different wind tunnel models, which were tested for the first time in the wind tunnel of Rome University, "La Sapienza"

The Biomechanics at the ESB 2025 in Zurich

The congress of the European Society for Biomechanics ESB took place from 6-9 July at ETH Zurich. The Biomechanical Engineering BME specialisation was also represented at the congress with several scientific contributions and keynote speeches.

Paper on "Non-linear finite element damage modeling" published by Robert Eberlein and Claus Wrana

Non-linear finite element damage modeling after multiple cyclic loading of rubberlike materials

Paper on Volterra Series published by Gabriele Immordino

Unsteady response of physical system may be modelled with Volterra Series. In this case, we modeled a parametrical system and exploited Neural Networks to interpolate the Volterra kernels

Paper on Bayesian Neural Networks published by Andrea Vaiuso and Gabriele Immordino

Bayesian Neural Networks allow multi-fidelity modelling and provide an indication of uncertainty

IMES wins 3 EELISA Projects

The Institute of Machanical Systems has won 3 EELISA Projects for 2025:

New lecturer Mechanics for Modeling

Dr. Sebastian Domaschke has started to work as a lecturer at IMES on 01.01.2025

Follow-up project with the Research Association for Drive Technology (FVA)

The approach developed for modelling the lifetime of POM gears is being generalised in the follow-up project which has just started.

New publication in the field of additive manufacturing

The strategic collaboration between IMES and IMPE is bearing fruit. Our publication in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A investigates the complex thermal expansion behavior of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V.