Home / Group
The group
Faculty, senior researchers, doctoral candidates and undergraduate students, working with universities, manufacturers and ship operators in Europe and beyond.
Group structure
The group belongs to the Machine Elements / Tribology Lab of the Division of Marine Engineering, in the School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering of NTUA.
Group members
- Christos I. Papadopoulos — Professor. Tribology of machine elements: hydrodynamic lubrication of journal and thrust bearings and of piston rings, elastic shaft alignment, surface texturing, diesel engine tribology, propulsion dynamics and numerical acoustics. Leads the Machine Elements Laboratory Unit of NTUA; co-founder of ShipReality (2018). CV → · Google Scholar →
- Lambros Kaiktsis — Professor. Computational thermo-fluid mechanics and combustion applied to marine engineering; heads the Department of Marine Engineering at the University of Doha for Science and Technology (affiliated). CV →
- Georgios N. Rossopoulos — PhD. Machine learning for the identification of operating conditions and the prevention of failures in marine shafting systems, and similarity assessment of marine shafting systems. CV → · Google Scholar →
- Dimitrios Skaltsas — PhD. Thermo-elasto-hydrodynamic analysis of slider and journal bearings with stochastic surface roughness and operating parameters, including magnetic-fluid-based hydrodynamic bearings. CV → · Google Scholar →
- George Charvalos — PhD candidate. Ship decarbonization: environmental and economic assessment of alternative marine fuels for bulk carriers. CV → · Google Scholar →
- Ioannis Pervelis — PhD candidate. Elasto-hydrodynamic analysis of deformable oil- and water-lubricated journal bearings. CV → · Google Scholar →
- Anastasios Stamoulis — PhD candidate. Elastic shaft alignment of marine shafting systems, including the effect of hull deformations. CV →
Former doctoral researchers: Dr. Anastasios G. Charitopoulos — THD/TEHD analysis and design optimization of thrust bearings, in collaboration with Prof. Michel Fillon (University of Poitiers). CV → · Google Scholar →
Undergraduate students join the group every year for their diploma theses; several of those theses have won best-thesis awards from RINA, SNAME and IMarEST.
Where we work
- Machine Elements / Tribology Lab — tribometer suite, optical profilometer, contact-angle apparatus and test beds.
- Laboratory of Marine Engineering — engine and shafting test facilities, founded in 1977.
- Computing — 500-core cluster with 6 × NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs and access to parallel supercomputers.
- At sea — onboard measurement campaigns and sea trials with ship owners and classification societies.
Academic collaborations
Long-standing joint work on bearing thermohydrodynamics, engine tribology and manufacturing tolerances.
University of Poitiers
France — Professor Michel Fillon. Joint experimental and computational work on thrust bearings, texturing and TEHD analysis.
Gdańsk University of Technology
Poland — Professors Michał Wasilczuk and Michał Wodtke. Manufacturing errors, pad surface geometry and thrust bearing performance.
ETH Zurich
Switzerland — Professor Konstantinos Boulouchos. Engine-related research and combustion.
University of Patras
Greece — Professor Pantelis Nikolakopoulos. Textured micro-thrust bearings, wear minimization and liquid-slip surfaces.
Industrial collaborations
Research and consultancy with the manufacturers, operators and class societies that use the results.
Mitsubishi Turbocharger and Engine Europe B.V.
The Netherlands, Turbocharger Division — Mr R. Eling, Mr R. Visser. Design optimization and transient performance of turbocharger thrust bearings (MHI TD025R).
WinGD (formerly Wärtsilä)
Switzerland — Dr German Weisser. Large two-stroke engine research.
Ship owners and operators
STARBULK (i-MARINE monitoring prototype and sea trials on STAR Cleo) and other shipping companies, on shafting, bearing and vibration problems.
Classification societies
Cooperation on elastic shaft alignment and stern-tube bearing performance; ABS and RINA contributed to the i-MARINE dissemination event.
BETA CAE Systems
Pre-processing software (ANSA) used for the global finite-element models of the vessels in the shaft-alignment studies.
Materials and coatings partners
Joint work on encapsulated liquid lubricants in metal-matrix thermal-spray coatings with materials-science groups.