Dr Spiridon Siouris

I am a Research Fellow in Aviation Fuels and Lubricant thermal stability and a Chartered Engineer. I studied Mechanical Engineering as an undergraduate in Sheffield and this is where I got introduced to the wonderful world of fluid mechanics and heat transfer. I carried out my final year project with the Aerodynamics group on Blended Wing Body aircraft which won the IMechE's best project prize in 2004.

I carried out PhD research at Sheffield for an EU FP7 project and Rolls Royce, which involved setting up a large scale test facility (one level prior to gas turbine testing) for investigating lubricant and system interactions, as well as developing modelling software for chemically reacting flows and lubricants. I continued this work as Research Associate with funding directly from Rolls Royce.

In 2010 I moved back to the Aerodynamics group to investigate Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) models with application on flow control devices for drag reduction and separation control for an EU-China funded consortium of academia and industry, including Airbus. I developed modelling capability in a CFD solver for plasma based flow control which brings significant advantages over other active flow control devices.

From 2014 I have been conducting research activities in aviation fuels and fuel system design, mainly funded by Rolls Royce and UKRI using a combination of experimental and numerical techniques, and in 2017 I was promoted to Research Fellow. Since 2020 my work has solely focused on developing numerical models and software for predicting fuel thermal degradation and deposition in aero engines. My latest work involves developing predicting capability for how filters block in an engine, and their effect in the downstream fuel's chemical composition, as well as looking at the performance of sustainable aviation fuels from different means of production.

Over the years I have supported Masters and PhD students, and delivered and led three undergraduate modules in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer. In 2019 I became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.