Director of research at the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission of France (CEA).
Affiliation:
Service de Physique de l’État Condensé
CEA Paris-Saclay
Office 227, bldg. 772, Orme des Merisiers
91191 Gif sur Yvette Cedex
France
Phone: +33 1 69 08 94 88
Main topics of research
- Physics of the heat transfer processes involving phase change (see the theoretical and experimental theses on boiling physics of my former Ph.D. students)
- Pulsating Heat Pipes
- PHP web page
- Experimental thesis on the film behavior in PHP by my former PhD student L. Fourgeaud
- Theoretical thesis on the film modeling by my former PhD student X. Zhang
- Thesis on PHP experiment and simulation with the code CASCO (see web page) by my former PhD student M. Abela
- Wetting, thin liquid films, dynamics of the triple contact line
- Magnetic gravity compensation
- Fluids in the vicinity of the liquid-gas critical point
- Natural condensation
News
Ph. D. thesis 2025 “Experimental and physical characterization of Pulsating Heat Pipes for space application” (co-supervised by V. Ayel and me, candidate selected)
2023 PhD thesis “Experimental study of boiling: characterization of near wall phenomena and bubble dynamics” (co-supervised by C. Tecchio and me, under way)
2024 PhD thesis “Taylor bubbles: experiments and modeling” (co-supervised by C. Tecchio and me, under way)
2024 PhD thesis “Direct Numerical Simulation of boiling of binary mixtures with TrioCFD” (co-supervised by G. Bois and me, under way)
2024 Experimental postdoctoral work on boiling, co-supervised by C. Tecchio and me (under way)
Co-authored by me 2025 NURETH-21 conference paper (C. Le Houedec et al.) has won the Best Paper Award
CV
Dr. Vadim Nikolayev graduated from the Radio-Physics Department of Kiev University (Ukraine, ex-USSR at the time) in 1985 and received his Ph.D. degree in Physics in 1989 from the same university. He was a staff researcher at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kiev in 1988-1999. He took visiting positions in France and USA (SPEC/CEA/Saclay, 1995-1996, DRFMC/CEA/Grenoble 1997-1998 and Physics Department of the University of New Orleans, USA, 1998-1999). Since 1999 he works as a staff researcher at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), at the Low Temperature Systems Department (DSBT) until 2013 and in the Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics (SPEC) since 2013.
As a member of the Team of supercritical fluids for environment, materials and space (ESEME) created jointly by CEA, CNRS and ESPCI (1999-2013), he was based at several laboratories: DSBT at Grenoble (1999-2000), ICMCB/CNRS at Bordeaux (2000-2004), PMMH/ESPCI at Paris (2004-2013).
He has defended his habilitation thesis in 2005. He is currently based at SPEC/IRAMIS/CEA/Saclay. He was a member of the scientific committee of the French-German program COMPERE (2012-2016) that deals with the behavior of cryogenic liquid fuel in the reservoirs of space vehicles.
He served as a co-chairman of the International Symposium on Oscillating/Pulsating Heat Pipes, Daejeon, Korea, September 25-28, 2019.
Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of a special issue of Applied Thermal Engineering “Innovations in Pulsating Heat Pipes” (2021)
Member of the scientific council GDR 2799 (virtual research entity managed by CNRS) “Fundamental and applied microgravity”.
Member of the LEO (Low Earth Orbit) Facility Definition Team of ESA (2023-2024).
Member of the International Scientific Committee of the 12th International Conference on Boiling and Condensation Heat Transfer, June 14-17, 2026, Boston, USA
Last change: Nov 8, 2025.