Charalampos Spyropoulos

PhD

Vortex-induced vibrations in wind turbine blades: Numerical modeling, sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification.

Host Organisation

Technical University of Delft

Company

SUZLON

Project Description

The topic of my PhD focuses on vortex-induced vibrations in wind turbine blades. As wind turbines become larger, the aeroelastic effects like vortex-induced vibrations are becoming more significant. In my PhD, I will focus on the numerical modeling of such phenomena in a high fidelity FSI framework. Then, having a clear understanding and validated tools to model VIV in wind turbine blades, the uncertainty in environmental conditions will be considered to predict the vibrational behavior robustly. The final aim of the thesis will be to provide a robust installation framework for extra-large wind turbines, taking into consideration the environmental uncertain conditions, and suggest installation and numerical testing guidelines.

Supervisors

Main supervisor: Ass. Prof. Wei Yu

Co. supervisor: Prof. Roeland de Breuker

Background

Charalampos (Charis) comes from Aigio, a small town of Greece. He holds a Diploma (equivalent to BSc + MSc) in Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Patras (2023), and an MSc in Computational Fluid Dynamics from the National Technical University of Athens (2025), Greece. During his studies, Charis focused on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), aerodynamic shape optimization and fluid structure interaction (FSI) developing a novel mesh morphing algorithm. He has also experience as CFD researcher in CERTH, one of the largest research centers in Greece.

Motivation

I’ve always been fascinated by science, so choosing engineering felt natural to me. But the real spark came in my third year, when I first encountered fluid dynamics. I was instantly hooked—it was amazing to see how fluid flows work and how much they affect our daily lives. As I dug deeper, I discovered computational fluid dynamics. The idea of using computers, mathematics and algorithms to understand and optimize fluid flows fascinated me. My research experiences, both in university and at research institute, only confirmed it for me: I wanted to pursue an academic career in Aerodynamics.