School staff directory

Prof Manolis Gavaises

Dilp. (MEng), DIC, PhD, MSAE

nullDirector of the Energy & Transport Research Centre

Delphi Chair in FIE Fluid Dynamics

Contact Information

Energy & Transport Research Centre
School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
City University
Northampron Square
London
EC1V 0HB
Room: C171
Phone: +44 (0) 20 7040 8115
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7040 8566
Email: : M.Gavaises@city.ac.uk

Expertise and Interests

Cavitation; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Fuel injection systems and sprays for Diesel and gasoline Direct injection IC engines; Cavitation erosion; Two-phase flows with phase-change; Fuels; Vaporisation; Bubble dynamics; Automotive fuels and fuel additives; Fuel cells for hybrid vehicles; Cavitation in medical devises; Coronary flow and blood thrombus formation; Non-Newtonian fluids; Low speed aerodynamics.

Summary of Contribution

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 a few 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. The significance of his work on the role of cavitation in fuel systems has been manifested by the strong support he has received from major automotive manufacturers worldwide (Delphi, Caterpillar, Lubrizol, Toyota, MAN B%W, Siemens, BMW, Yamaha, Nissan, Renault, Ford). Following his promotion to Professor, he was appointed Director of the Energy and Transport Research Centre at City University London. Prof Gavaises is now leading research on cavitation for a major fuel injection systems manufacturer (Delphi Diesel Systems, UK) who supports his Chair in Fuel Injection Equipment (FIE) Fluid Dynamics.

The most well known breakthrough work of Prof Gavaises is the development of a cavitation model and the development of a 3-D CFD software (General Fluid Solver - GFS). This is a fully unstructured turbulent RANS/LES flow solver with automatic local grid refinement and includes models for cavitation, sprays and liquid/gas interface capturing with phase change. The cavitation model has been extensively validated with in-house experiments on cavitation in transparent fuel injectors that combined visualisation, laser Doppler velocimetry and Computed Tomography (CT). As a follow up of this work, together with colleagues from City, TU Delft and Loughborough Universities, Prof Gavaises has co-established and leads as primary investigator (PI) the 1st International Institute of Cavitation Research with headquarters at City University London which is supported financially from The Lloyd's Register Educational Trust (The LRET). The Institute has the ambitious target to coordinate non-commercial research in the area of cavitation erosion and damage in mechanical, automotive and medical systems.

Prof Gavaises has published over 100 pear refereed journal and conference articles (60% of them have been published since 2006) and he has received two European and U.S. patents licensed to industry. He teaches at BEng, MEng and MSc programmes at City University London on Fundamentals of Thermodynamics (ME1109), CFD (AE3213), Internal Combustion Engines (ME3151 & EPM766), Vehicle Aerodynamics (ME3154) and Engineering Applications of CFD (EPM764).

Professional Activities

Distinguished lectures

List of invited lectures (pdf)

Awards

Publications 

List of Publications, Patents & Citations (pdf)

Recent Major Research Grants (since 2008)

List of research grants (pdf)