General Compression Appoints Leaders in Thermodynamics, Constructal Theory and Fluid Power to Technical Advisory Board

NEWTON, Mass., Nov. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- General Compression, Inc. ("GC"), a Massachusetts company developing an innovative compressed air energy storage system that burns no fuel when generating electricity, announced today that it has appointed Professor Adrian Bejan of Duke University, Professor Sylvie Lorente of University of Toulouse, and Dr. Monika Ivantysynova of Purdue University to General Compression's Technical Advisory Board ("GC TAB").

The GC TAB was formed in 2010 to provide a venue for distinguished scientists and other industry professionals to apply their practical engineering knowledge to the design of General Compression's production-scale Advanced Energy Storage ("GCAES™") system.

Adrian Bejan is the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University in Durham, NC.  Professor Bejan's research covers a wide range of topics in thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, and convection in porous media.  More recently, he developed the Constructal Law of design in nature.  Professor Bejan is ranked among the 100 most highly cited authors worldwide in engineering (all fields, all countries), by the Institute for Scientific Information (2001) and has received 16 honorary doctorates from universities in 11 countries.  Professor Bejan is the author of 24 books and 500 peer-referred journal articles.

Sylvie Lorente is a full Professor of Civil Engineering at the National Institute of Applied Sciences, INSA at the University of Toulouse (France), and is an Adjunct Professor at Duke University (Durham, NC).  Her current research is in the field of constructal theory, heat transfer, fluid mechanics and mass transport through porous materials. Her many awards include the 2007 James P. Hartnett Award in thermodynamics, the 2006 Intelligent Optimal Design prize in Paris, and the 2005 Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer.  Professor Lorente is the author of more than 100 peer-referred articles and three books; most recently, she co-authored Design with Constructal Theory.

Monika Ivantysynova is an esteemed academic and acknowledged industry expert in the field of fluid power systems.  As the Professor of Mechatronic Systems at the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg, she established a cutting edge fluid power research laboratory.  In 2004 she became Maha named Professor of Fluid Power Systems at Purdue University and Director of Purdue's new established Maha Fluid Power Research Center.  Professor Ivantysynova's research takes up hydraulic component design, advanced electro-hydraulic motion control, and hydraulic system design algorithms.  Her current research is developing high-efficiency hydraulic actuator architectures for heavy-duty manipulators, robots, and aircraft.  She authored Hydrostatic Pumps and Motors in German and English, and has published approximately 130 papers in technical journals and at international conferences. Professor Ivantysynova is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Fluid Power.  In 2009, Professor Ivantysynova was awarded the Jozeph Bramah Medal by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers' (UK) for her outstanding commitment to international fluid power research and education, particularly in the field of hydrostatic pumps and motors. Recently she was awarded an honorary doctorate at her alma mater, the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.

"General Compression is thrilled and honored that Professors Bejan, Lorente, and Ivantysynova have agreed to join GC's Technical Advisory Board.  For many years their collective published works have guided and educated GC's technical leadership.  When we were exposed to their most recent work in Constructal Design and in Hydrostatic Pumps and Motors, the applicability to General Compression's Advanced Energy Storage (GCAES™) system was clear and irresistible," said Eric Ingersoll, CEO of General Compression.

About General Compression

Founded in 2006, General Compression, Inc. has made patent-pending advancements in the fields of isothermal compression and expansion to provide utility-scale storage for both renewable and conventional electricity sources.  GC's near-isothermal compressor/expander module is used to create 2.5 MW to 1,000 MW, 8 to 300 hour discharge, compressed air energy storage projects.  Company founders Eric Ingersoll, David Marcus, and Michael Marcus launched GC with a vision of creating Dispatchable Wind™ to integrate low-cost bulk storage with wind farms to eliminate the issues of intermittent power generation.  The company's technology and projects are designed to set clean, domestic wind power on a path to become the dominant electric power generation source in the United States.  In 2010, General Compression raised over $22.4 million in Series A financing from investors including US Renewables Group, Duke Energy and Northwater Intellectual Property Fund, and was awarded a $750,000 grant from the Department of Energy's ARPA-E (GRIDS) program.  The company is currently testing its GCAES™ technology at a facility in Massachusetts and in 2011 is scheduled to begin construction on a pilot project in Texas with partner ConocoPhillips.  

GC can be found on the web at www.generalcompression.com.

SOURCE General Compression, Inc.