Rate My Professor Nicholas Apazidis

Nicholas Apazidis serves as Senior Professor and Professor of Mechanics at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, affiliated with the Fluid Mechanics group in the Department of Engineering Mechanics within the School of Engineering Sciences. He has accumulated more than three decades of teaching experience at KTH, having been appointed Professor of Mechanics in 2016 and promoted to Senior Professor in September 2023. His research focuses on shock wave propagation, particularly shock wave focusing phenomena and shock propagation in heterogeneous media. This includes studies of shock-droplet and shock-bubble interactions, as well as the generation of extreme states of matter through stable imploding shocks in various media. Apazidis and his research group employ experimental, numerical, and theoretical approaches. Experiments are conducted using shock tubes to produce extreme temperatures and pressures in gases, and specialized chambers where shock waves are generated via powerful electric discharges in liquids or gas/liquid mixtures.

The research addresses shock waves associated with natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as those produced by explosions, propagating through air, water, or bedrock. These phenomena have both destructive potential and beneficial applications, including medical lithotripsy for kidney stones and processes involving material structures. The group's work aims to develop methods for protection against harmful effects and to harness shock waves for technical applications. Apazidis has authored textbooks Mekanik I: Statik och Partikeldynamik and Mekanik II, published by Studentlitteratur, and the monograph Shock Focusing Phenomena (Springer, 2019). Key publications include "Limiting Temperatures of Spherical Shock Wave Implosion" (Physical Review Letters, 2016), "Plane shock wave interaction with a cylindrical water column" (Physics of Fluids, 2016), "Energy concentration by spherical converging shocks generated in a shock tube" (Physics of Fluids, 2012), "Focusing of strong shocks in an annular shock tube" (Shock Waves, 2006), and "An experimental and theoretical study of converging polygonal shock waves" (Shock Waves, 2002). He contributes extensively to teaching mechanics courses at KTH, such as Mechanics I (SG1130 and SG1112) as examiner and course responsible, Mechanics II (SG1140), and Mechanics, Continuation Course (SG1113).