Professor Manolis Gavaises

Overview

Professor Gavaises graduated from the department of mechanical engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 1992 and received his PhD from the Department of mechanical engineering of Imperial College London in 1997. For his PhD Thesis he was awarded with the 1998 Richard Way Prize for 'Most outstanding doctoral thesis in the area of IC engines in the UK from the Universities Internal Combustion Engines Group (UnICEG) and the Arch T. Collwell Merit Award from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). After four years of post-doctoral research at Imperial College London, he was appointed lecturer at the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences of City University London in 2001, promoted to Reader in 2006 and Professor in 2009. Following his promotion to Professor, he was appointed between 2009-2014 as Director of the Energy and Transport Research Centre at City University London. Between 2009-2013 he was holding the Delphi Diesel Systems Chair in FIE Fluid Dynamics. In 2011, with co-workers from City University, Loughborough University and TU Delft he co-established and directs the International Institute of Cavitation Research (IICR), supported by The Lloyd’s Register Foundation. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the UK (IMechE), fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and it's Applications (IMA) and member of the Society of Automotive Engineers SAE in the US. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals and conference proceedings.

International Conference Organization Committee
Prof Gavaises was the organiser and chairman of the 2013 ILASS-Europe conference. He has been the organiser of a special session on fuel systems, fuels and lubricants during the 2015 Cavitation Symposium (CAV2015, EPFL). He also serves on the organisation committees the Cavitation Symposium, the International Liquid Atomisation and Spray systems conference (ILASS-Europe), the SIA Diesel Powertrain conferences and the IMechE conference for Fuel Systems. He is the founder/chairman of the IICR Workshops.

Distinguished lectures

- 2020, Pleanary Speaker, 21st ILASS-ASIA Conference on Liquid Atomisation and Spray Systems
- 2019, Invited Speaker, 7th Analytix Congress, Berlin
- 2019, Pleanary Speaker, ENCOM Workshop, Erlangen University
- 2017: Invited speaker on ”Flow phenomena in fuel injection systems”, 13th Conference on “Present and Future Engines for Automobiles”, Lake Toya of Hokkaido, Japan
- 2017: Invited speaker on ”X-ray phase-contract measurements and CFD simulations of cavitation in a Diesel nozzle orifice replica”, DIPSI workshop on droplet impact phenomena and spray investigations, University of Bergamo, Italy
- 2016: Plenary lecture on ‘The importance of turbulence models in cavitating injector flows’, LES4ICE, IFP Nouvelle, Paris, France
- 2016: Invited speaker on ‘Flow and cavitation in fuel injector nozzles’, ANSYS World Automotive Congress, Munich, Germany
- 2015: Plenary lecture on ‘Flow and cavitation in high pressure fuel injector nozzles', Cavitation Symposium CAV2015, Lausanne, Switzerland
- 2015: Invited speaker on ‘Review of Cavitation models for Diesel Fuel Injectors. EPSRC conference on Multi-Phase Flows and their modelling, Brunel University, UK
- 2015: Invited speaker on ” Review of Cavitation models for Diesel Fuel Injectors”, 13th Conference on “Present and Future Engines for Automobiles”, Stonybrook University, New York, USA
- 2015: Invited speaker on ‘Cavitation in Diesel Fuel Injectors’, ANSYS Fluent Conference’, Athens, Greece
- 2015: Invited speaker on ”Simulation of droplet deformation, breakup and vaporisation using the full Navier-Stokes equations”, DIPSI workshop on droplet impact phenomena and spray investigations, University of Bergamo, Italy
- 2014: Invited speaker on ‘ITN case study’, UKRO workshop, London
- 2013: Invited speaker on ‘Multiphase flows and their modelling’, Screw Compressors Centre Workshop, City University London
- 2013: Pleanary lecture on Grand Opening of the Advanced Diesel Injection and Combustion Center at the Delphi Customer Technology Center on ‘Experiments and simulations in cavitating high pressure Diesel fuel injector nozzles’
- 2013: Invited speaker on ‘Experiments and simulations in cavitating high pressure Diesel fuel injector nozzles’, Delphi Inauguration Research Centre, Luxemburg
- 2012: Invited speaker on ”Fuels and fuel systems for high pressure Diesel engines”, 12th Conference on “Present and Future Engines for Automobiles”, Delphi, Greece
- 2012: Plenary lecture on ‘High-pressure fuel injection for the environmentally friendly Diesel engines’, 2nd Workshop on Clean Environmentally Friendly Vehicles (CEVF), Korea
- 2011: Invited speaker on ‘Transient and Mean Cavitation Structures in Diesel Injectors’, 12th International SAOT Workshop on “Engine Diagnostics”, Erlangen University, Germany
- 2011: Invited speaker on ” Cavitation inside real-size fully transparent fuel injector nozzles and its effect on near-nozzle spray formation”, DIPSI workshop on droplet impact phenomena and spray investigations, University of Bergamo, Italy
- 2011: Plenary lecture on ‘Simulation of fuel injection processes’, 24th ILASS Conference on Liquid Atomisation and Spray Systems, Estoril, Portugal
- 2010: Invited speaker on ”Cavitation and spray modelling in Diesel fuel systems”, 11th United Engineering Foundation Conference on “Present and Future Engines for Automobiles”, Shanghai, China
- 2009: Keynote address on ‘Advances in cavitation research in Automotive fuel injectors’, 9th Conference on “Engine Combustion Processes”, Munich, Germany
- 2009: Invited speaker on ”A hybrid VOF-Lagrange model for dense spray simulation”, DIPSI workshop on sprays: Industrial applications, Experiments and Modelling’ University of Bergamo, Italy
- 2008: Keynote address on ‘Complex Cavitation Structures in Diesel Injector Nozzles’, THIESEL 2008 Conference on Thermo- and Fluid-Dynamic Processes in Diesel Engines, Valencia, Spain
- 2007: Invited speaker on ”Modeling of High Pressure Diesel Sprays under Evaporating Conditions”, British Council Workshop on “Sprays: Modelling vs Experimentation”, Brighton University, UK
- 2007: Invited speaker on ”Cavitation in fuel injection systems for direct injection engines”, 10th United Engineering Foundation Conference on “Present and Future Engines for Automobiles”, Rodos, Greece
- 2006: Invited speaker on ”Cooling effectiveness of water droplets falling on a flat plate”, DITICE workshop on drop/wall interaction: Industrial applications, Experiments and Modelling, University of Bergamo, Italy
- 2003: Invited speaker on ”Two-phase flows and applications to automotive industry”, 8th United Engineering Foundation Conference on “Present and Future Engines for Automobiles VII”, Catania, Italy
- 2000: Invited speaker on ”Flow in Diesel Injector Nozzles”, 3rd Symposium “TOWARDS CLEAN DIESEL ENGINES”, IFP, Paris, France
- 1998: Invited speaker on “Flow in fuel injection systems for DI Diesel engines”, 4th Int. Workshop on Advanced Spray Combustion, Hiroshima, Japan

Qualifications

• DIC Mechanical Engineering, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 1997
• PhD Mechanical Engineering, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, 1997
• Diploma (5 years) Mechanical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Greece, 1992

Memberships of professional organisations

• Fellow, Institute of Mathematics & its Applications (IMA), 2015 – present
• Fellow, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, 2013 – present
• Member, Society of Automotive Engineers, 1999 – present
• Member, Technical Chamber of Greece, 1993 – present

Awards

• Conference on 'Engine Combustion Processes' (2009) Best presentation award
• IMechE (2007) PE Publication award
  Journal of Automotive Engineering, Proc. IMechE, Part D: Journal of Automobile Engineering, Vol 221, issue 10, pp 1321-1342, 2007
• SAE World Congress, Detroit (2006) Best Oral Paper
  SAE Paper 2006-01-1114
• UnICEG (1998) Richard Way Prize
  for outstanding doctoral thesis in the area of internal combustion engines
• SAE (1998) Arch T. Collwell Merit Award
  for the paper entitled 'Analysis of the flow in the nozzle of a vertical mutli-hole Diesel engine injector', SAE Paper 980811
• United Engineering Foundation Conference (1989) Fellowship Program for New Professionals
  on 'Present and Future Engines for Automobiles VI'

Teaching

Teaching

- ME3151 Internal Combustion Engines, module leader 2007-present.
- EPM766 Internal Combustion Engines, module leader 2007-present.
- ME3152 Dynamics, part contribution on vehicle aerodynamics, 2003-present.
- ME1109(2) Thermodynamics I, module leader between 2001-2012.
- AE3213 Computational Fluid Dynamics, part contribution on incompressible flows 2003-2012.
- EPM764 Engineering Applications of CFD, module leader 2002-2007.

Research area

Prof Gavaises is working on the development and implementation of complex multi-phase flow models and explores with academic and industrial partners their applications in many areas. Prof Gavaises has developed numerous numerical codes, covering a range of Mach numbers from subsonic to hypersonic, interface capturing methods, phase interactions and phase-change processes. Special focus has been given on thermodynamic modelling of complex fluids (e.g. non-ideal fluids and their mixtures, viscoelastic fluids) and states (e.g. all the thermodynamic map including vapour, liquid, supercritical fluid and metastable states) using the Helmholtz Equation of State (EoS) and more recently, the Perturbed Chain - Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SHAFT) equations of state, coupled with compressible solvers of the N-S equations. Effects of cavitation on erosion/durability of fuel injection systems and atomisation, as well as viscoelastic fuel additive effects on cavitation have been explored. At fundamental level, DNS of cavitation and bubble dynamics under non-isothermal conditions have been performed. At a more applied level, the PI has undertaken large eddy simulations (LES) of cavitation erosion in complex devises with moving boundaries considering the interaction with materials (such as cavitation erosion). His currently funded work focuses on direct numerical simulations (DNS) of cavitation and bubble dynamics and their effect to (a) erosion of mechanical components (fuel injectors, hydrofoils, pumps, hydraulic turbines), (b) atomisation for a wide range of combustion systems (IC engines, gas turbines, oil burners, rocket engines) and (c) fuels and additives. His computational work is supported by in-house advanced experimental techniques. He is the co-inventor of an international patent for a cavitation erosion prevention methodology. In addition, the Prof Gavaise’s group has developed experimental test rigs for measuring cavitating flows in micro-channels at adverse pressure and temperature conditions. He is the co-inventor of an international patent on the development of the only so far 2000bar pressure flow rig with micro-transparent nozzle orifices. Experimental techniques such as laser diagnostics, X-ray computed tomography and X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging (XPCI), performed very recently at ANL. Moreover, Prof Gavaises has been closely involved in simulations in coronary arterial trees and mechanical heart valves using the immersed boundary method coupled with compressible/cavitating flow solvers and bio-chemical mechanisms predicting blood thrombus formation as function of the local flow and geometry conditions.

Major contribution to early careers of researchers

In the relatively short period of 16 years of his academic career at CITY, Prof Gavaises has successfully supervised to the completion of 13 PhDs. He is currently supervising 23 doctoral students (14 internal at CITY and 9 external, who are based and conducting their research in industry sector). He has also taken on the external examiner roles of 10 PhD theses, of which, 5 national and 5 international. Regarding mentoring Post-docs/experienced researchers, Prof Gavaises not just simply mentors them, but also creates opportunities for hosting them, by obtaining external findings in the first place. Since 2011, he managed to obtain external funding, totalling over 610 person-months, to support 15 post-docs/experienced researchers to carry out their research and/or start their academic career at CITY. These fellowships include 2 Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Outgoing (IOF) projects, 2 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Intra-European (IEF) projects and one Marie Skłodowska-Curie Industry Academia Partnership Pathway (IAPP) project (FuelSystem3000) which was led by CITY and carried out in partnership with Univ. of Bergamo (IT), Perkins Engines UK and Caterpillar Fuel Systems in the US. He created academic opportunities by securing funding/mentoring for 4 young lecturers and one professor (Prof Bergeles 2013-2017) at CITY, in order to enhance the research and teaching base of the institution. With his capacity as PhD supervisor and the mentor of post-doctoral researchers he has contributed to the career of all of his researchers, that now hold academic, education or industrial position across Europe and the US. More specifically, eight of his researchers hold academic positions and the rest hold industrial positions, with the most senior ones in key managerial/strategic posts.

Additionally, he is contributing to the career development of at least 45 Early-Stage Researchers via the 3 Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions ITN projects that he currently coordinates. The PI has provided career opportunities of high quality, open to young researchers of any nationality and gender. He supports their career development and training through international and intersectoral mobility, aiming not only to train them but also to help them to develop positive European and wider international identities and a sense of belonging.

Commissions of trust

Prof Gavaises is an active reviewer to all major scientific journals in his field. He is a registered Expert/Reviewer for the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and the ERC Starting Grant. In addition, he acts as reviewer to various research councils, including EPSRC (UK research council) and the National Research Foundations of Switzerland and of France, Singapore, UAE and Qatar.

Major collaborations

Since 2012, Prof Gavaises has been the Coordinator of 9 EU-funded, 1 EPSRC (UK research council) and 6 industrial programmes (see list of active programmes below). The total grant awarded since 2012 from EU schemes is €16 million, of which, €6.15 million is awarded to CITY; and £1.35 million is from UK funders. The networks created for collaboration of academic institutions, industries and research centres that participate to the three EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (the EU scheme for training of early-staged researchers/PhDs with ~15 partner institutions each form the EU and around the world)(‘CAFÉ’ www.cafe-project.eu, ‘HAOS’ www.haos-itn.eu, ‘IPPAD’ www.ippad-itn.eu) that he is currently leading is vast. The projects focus on collaboration in order to simulate research in cavitation and bubble dynamics, cavitation erosion, cavitation-induced atomisation and fuel and fuel additive effects in mechanical, automotive, marine, aerospace applications, as well as artificial heart valves.

The EU-based academic beneficiary partners of these programmes include: TU Munich (GE), EPFL (Switzerland), University of Grenoble (FR), TU Delft (NL), Imperial College London (UK), University College London (UK), Stuttgart University (GE), Chalmers University (Sweden), University of Rouen (FR), CERTH (GR), University of Erlangen-Nuremburg (GE), Lund University (Sweden), IFPEN (FR). The EU-based industrial beneficiary partners include: AVL List (AT), Wartsila (NL), Delphi Diesel Systems (UK), Hitachi-Mitsubishi Power Industries (GE), Delphi Automotive Systems (LU), Afton Chemicals (UK), Perkins Engines (UK). In addition a number of both universities and industries worldwide participate to these programmes as Partners, including: NTU (Singapore), Johns Hopkins University (US), Virginia Commonwealth University (US), Arizona State University (US), University of Melbourne (Australia), Shanghai Jiang Tong University (China), KAIST (S.Korea), Argonne National Laboratories (US), Sandia National Laboratories (US), Andriz Hydro (Switzerland), Rolls Royce (UK), DLR (GE), Rolls Royce Aero Engines (GE), BP (UK), OMV (AT), Renault (FR) Volvo Cars (Sweden), Caterpillar Fuel Systems (US). These ITN programmes he coordinates fund currently in total 46 early career researchers (PhD students) worldwide.

Regarding principal industrial collaborators at CITY, it includes: Delphi Diesel Systems, UK and Luxemburg (2002-present), Caterpillar Fuel Systems US and Perkins Engines, US (2005-present), Lubrizol, UK (2012-present) and BP/Castrol (2012-present), Isuzu, Japan (2017), Afton Chemical Corporation, US (2012-2013); Denso Japan (2013); Toyota Motor Europe, Belgium (2002-2009); MAN B&W, Denmark (2002-2005), Siemens VDO, Italy (2002-2004); BMW, Germany (2002-2003); Nissan Motor Company, Japan (2001-2003); Yamaha Motor Company, Japan (1999-2002); Renault France (1999-2001); Ford US & Ford Research Centre at Aachen, Germany (1998-2001).

Within the UK, Prof Gavaises has established work with the University of Brighton (joint UK EPSRC grant), Imperial College and University College London (on joint EU project) and Loughborough University (IICR partner).

Currently Funded Research Projects

Prof Gavaises is currently running as PI a number of EU, EPSRC and industry funded research projects. Research projects currently funded:


1. 2016-2019: Caterpillar US ‘Simulation of cavitation in Diesel fuel injectors’

2. 2015-2019: EU Marie Curie-ITN IPPAD (ID:675528): 'Effect of 4500bar injection pressure and supercritical phase change of surrogate and real-world fuels enriched with additives and powering Diesel engines, on soot emissions reduction'. ( http://ippad-itn.eu/ )

3. 2015-2019: EU Marie Curie-ITN HAOS (ID:675676): 'Holistic Approach of Spray: Injection through a generalized multi-phase framework'. ( http://haos-itn.eu/ )

4. 2015-2019: EU Marie Curie-ITN CAFÉ (ID:642536): 'Development and experimental validation of computational models for cavitating flows, surface erosion damage and material loss'. ( http://cafe-project.eu/ )

5. 2014-2017. EPSRC / Brighton University and BP 'Investigation of Non-Spherical Droplets in High-Pressure Fuel Sprays'.

6. 2011-2017. The Lloyd’s Register Foundation, UK, 'The International Institute on Cavitation Research'.

7. 2014-2017. Lubrizol Ltd UK, 'Additives & cavitation'.

8. 2018-2021. EU H2020-MSCA-IF UNIFIED (ID:748784): 'Fuel injection from subcritical to supercritical P-T conditions: a unified methodology for coupled in-nozzle flow, atomisation and air-fuel mixing processes'

Completed Research Projects

2014-2016. Delphi Diesel System – Luxemburg and Luxemburg NRC, 'Coupled modelling of diesel cavitation nozzle and spray dynamics'

2013-2016. EU Marie Curie-IAPP FuelSystem3000 (ID:324313): 'Simulation of cavitation and erosion in fuel injection systems of medium/heavy duty Diesel engines at injection pressures reaching 3000bar'.

2014-2017. Marie Curie IOF (ID:329286), 'Cavitation bubble cloud dynamics and surface erosion in high pressure fuel systems for medium/heavy duty Diesel engines'.

2014-2016. Marie Curie-IEF (ID:329116), 'Understanding non-spherical droplet vaporisation of single-component hydrocarbon fuels and multi-component biofuel blends'.

2012-2016. ERC Marie Curie-IOF (ID:300410), 'Fuel Additives Effect on Fuel Injector Design'.

2013-2015. Marie Curie-IEF (ID: 329500), ‘Droplet impingement on non-flat surfaces’

2014. BP International Ltd, UK, ‘Cavitation of multi-component fuels’

2013. Denso, DE,’Cavitation erosion simulation’

2012-2013. Afton Chemical Corporation, USA, ‘Fuel additives effect of nozzle flow’

2012. Lubrizol Ltd, UK, ‘Engine power gaining investigation’

2009-2013. Delphi Diesel Systems, UK, ‘Industrial Chair on FIE Fluid Dynamics’

2007-2010. Delphi Diesel Systems, UK, ‘Modelling and experimentation of performance characteristics of needle fuel valves’

2008-2009. Perkins Engines (Caterpillar-UK), ‘Modelling of string cavitation in Diesel injector nozzles’

2006-2007. Delphi Diesel Systems, UK, ‘Benchmarking of cavitation in Diesel injector nozzles using commercial and in-house CFD software’

2005-2008. DTi/EPSRC, ‘Design of radically low emission Diesels by advanced modelling’

2005. Caterpillar Fuel Systems, USA, ‘CFD modelling of fuel injection systems for HCCI engines’

2005-2006. Delphi Diesel Systems, UK, ‘Modelling of cavitation in Diesel injectors’

2005-2007. Toyota Motor Company Europe (Belgium), ‘Feasibility studies of relevance to the Automotive Industry’

2002-2005. MAN B&W (Denmark), ‘Modelling of nozzle flow and spray characteristics in marine Diesel injector nozzles’

2003-2004. Toyota Motor Company (Japan), ‘Experiments and Modelling of cavitation in Diesel injectors’

2003-2005. Delphi Diesel Systems, UK, ‘Modelling of cavitation in Diesel injectors’

2003. Siemens Automotive VDO, IT, ‘Investigation of internal flow in Piezo pintle nozzles for gasoline direct injection engines’

2002. BMW, DE, ‘Investigation of internal flow in gasoline multi-hole nozzles’

2001-2002. Nissan Motor Company (Japan), ‘Investigation of Diesel spray impingement processes’

Publications by category