People

Dr. Foivos (Phoevos) Koukouvinis: his experience and background lies in the energy generation sector. During his PhD research he worked on the development of numerical algorithms for the simulation of impulse hydraulic turbines (Pelton and Turgo turbines). The developed methodologies were coupled to optimisation algorithms for the design of improved turbines, which have been manufactured and tested. Apart from the applied nature of the research, he has worked on fundamental aspects of numerical methodologies, publishing two papers in well known peer reviewed journals. He has participated in the manufacturing of the turbines, by producing design drawings, assisting in the assembling of the model turbines ( at NTUA) and conducted experimental measurements. During his post-doctoral research, he worked with in-house (GFS), open source (OpenFOAM) and commercial (ANSYS Fluent, CFX) software for the prediction of cavitation and erosion in various hydraulic devices, focusing mainly on Diesel injection systems. Due to the nature of such systems, he has gained experience on compressible multiphase flows with phase change and non-idealised fluid effects. He has experience in advanced experimental techniques on cavitation in high pressure hydraulic circuits, after participating in X-ray measurements at Argonne National Labs. Apart from applied research in fuel systems, he has also worked in fundamental bubble dynamic cases, for understanding the interaction of bubbles with moving/stationary boundaries/free surfaces.
He has collaborated with industries, such as CFS, Perkins Engines UK, Delphi Diesel Systems UK, Woodward UK, L’Orange Germany, ISUZU Motors Japan, Denso Gmbh Germany and BP International Ltd, and academic/research institutes, such as Bergamo University, Insitut Polytechnique de Grenoble, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, NTU Singapore, TU Munich and Argonne National Labs.

Dr. Lyle Pickett received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000. He now holds the title of Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, a position held by only the top 10% of the R&D staff at Sandia. He has sustained funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, and other automotive and energy industries totalling more than $11M USD to support his laboratory over the last 15 years. His research is award winning, having received 6 different Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) “best-paper” category awards, as well as similar awards from the Institute of Liquid Atomisation and Spray Systems and American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He serves as an organizer or scientific committee member for SAE, the Combustion Institute, LES4ICE, and is a fellow of the SAE.  He has published over 100 scientific papers (H-index 38), and delivered over 20 invited keynote talks. Main achievements of his work is the development of quantitative mixture fraction and soot datasets in a spray chamber operating at high-pressure, high-temperature conditions representative of a diesel engine.  

Prof. Manolis Gavaises: Prof. Gavaises received PhD from Imperial College London in 1997 (the 1998 Richard Way Prize for ‘Most outstanding doctoral thesis in the area of IC engines in the UK’; the Arch T. Collwell Merit Award from the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)). 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 and Director of the ThermoFluids Engineering Research Centre at City in 2009. In 2009-2012 he was holding the Delphi Diesel Systems Chair in FIE Fluid Dynamics. MG is currently a director of the International Institute for Cavitation Research (www.cavitation-institute.org) at City in partnership with TU Delft and Loughborough Universities supported by The Lloyd’s Register Foundation (The LRF). In 2015 he was appointed Associate Editor of Int. J. Engine Res. while he is the editor of a special volume on ‘Cavitation in IC Engines’ published in 2014. He serves on the editorial board of Atomisation & Sprays, Journal of Applied Mathematics and Interfacial Phenomena and Heat Transfer. In 2013 he was elected secretary of the organisation Liquid Atomisation and Spray Systems (ILASS-Europe). He serves on the organisation committee of 3 major international conferences (the IMechE conference on Fuel Injection Systems, ILASS-Europe and the SIA conference on Diesel Powertrain). He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the UK and Fellow of the Institute of Applied Mathematics.