Prof. Dr. Ali Cemal Benim Appointed Editor-in-Chief of Computation

Prof. Dr. Ali Cemal Benim, from the Center of Flow Simulation (CFS), was appointed to the position of Editor-in-Chief of Computation (ISSN: 2079-3197) on 22 February 2024. This follows his role as the Associate Editor, in which he has served since 2013.

He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, at the Institute of Process Engineering and Power Plant Technology of the Faculty of Energy Technology. Subsequently, he spent a post-doctoral period at the University of Stuttgart. During this time, he performed research on computational procedures for flows and flames, on turbulence and combustion modeling, and taught courses on finite element methods in fluid flow and heat transfer.

Subsequently, he joined ABB Turbo Systems Ltd. in Baden, Switzerland. In the Thermal Machinery Laboratory, which acted as an R&D department for the whole ABB enterprise, he gained experience in a broad range of industrial applications, including fluid flow, heat transfer, and combustion, with an emphasis on gas turbine combustion and gas and steam turbines. He was the manager of the Group on Computational Flow and Combustion Modelling.

Since 1996, he has been a professor of energy technology at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences at the Faculty of Mechanical and Process Engineering, Germany, currently leading the Center of Flow Simulation (CFS), and has been continuously active in mathematical modeling and computational simulation of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer in a broad range of engineering applications, quite often in cooperation with industrial companies.

He authored and co-authored over 150 publications in several fields, including finite element methods in flow problems, the finite analytic method, Navier–Stokes solution techniques, the lattice Boltzmann method, turbulence modeling, combustion modeling (gaseous, liquid, and solid fuels), gasification, convective and radiative heat transfer, metal flow, two-phase flows with phase change, erosion, turbomachinery, internal and external aerodynamics, aeroacoustics, environmental flows, as well as biofluid dynamics.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Ali Cemal Benim, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What aspects of serving as the Editor-in-Chief of Computation do you find appealing?
My research is based on computational techniques that fit very well with Computation's remit. Computation is an outstanding journal in this field, offering all the advantages of MDPI journals, such as the ability to produce high-quality reviews quickly, fast open access publication with a high degree of dissemination, and well-structured and functional portals for authors, reviewers, and editors. I have been involved in Computation in various capacities from the beginning and have tried to support the development of the journal. I am now pleased to be able to continue to serve Computation in my current role to a greater extent.

2. What are your expectations for the future of the journal?
Computation received its first impact factor in the Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate) in 2023, coinciding with Computation's 10th anniversary. This was an important milestone in the journal's development, and gaining an impact factor of 2.2 was good. As computational techniques are increasingly used in a wide and growing range of applications, the journal has a high and ever-growing potential to reach a wide range of readers and authors. Therefore, I expect Computation's success to be even greater in the future.

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks and appreciation to my predecessor, the first Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Karhleinz Schwarz, for his great work. I would also like to thank my colleagues on the Editorial Board and, of course, the MDPI Editorial Office for their great work, support, and cooperation, without which the current success would not be possible. Of course, I would also like to thank our countless readers, authors, reviewers, and Guest Editors who have contributed to our success so far and given me the confidence to reach even higher goals.

3. In your opinion, what are the future development directions for the Computation journal?
The high potential has already been mentioned in the previous point. In order to determine the specific directions of future developments, a more detailed, comprehensive analysis and assessment is required, which is to be carried out.

We wish Prof. Dr. Ali Cemal Benim every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.