Interfaces play a key role in the overall response of a system. Whenever contacts make part of a physical system, most of the transfer and loss of energy occurs through and within interfaces. The local energy dissipation brings to loss of efficiency, energy consumption, material damaging and wear. The consequences are uncountable, with enormous economic and social impacts: consumption and pollution, components wear and replacement, catastrophic failures of components, airborne particle emissions, transformation of material properties in surface, ... In a recent Resolution (2016), the US Congress encouraged the founding agencies to invest in tribology and related fundamental issues, because of the enormous advantages that improvements in this discipline can lead to economy, health and society.
In this context, this project aims to the acquisition of a Multifunctional Tribometer, able to reproduce and measure contact interfaces under several boundary conditions. This equipment is of fundamental interest for several lines of research: mechanical and biomechanical engineers will have a powerful tool for characterizing and improving systems, by lowering the overall energy consumption and wear, aiming to an improvement of the sustainability and health compatibility of future technologies; material scientists can investigate the evolution of surfaces under tribological solicitation, to develop new materials and coatings for low wear and damaging; physicists can profit of the instrumentation to improve the reliability in physical tests and investigate the behaviour of matter at the interface; in geophysics, contact laws between rocks can be determined for simulating faults and earthquakes; biomedical engineers will profit for characterizing and improving prostheses and medical devices; ...
In line with the recent developments in tribology and contact mechanics, the acquisition of this instrumentation will project La Sapienza towards an excellence in the field.
When characterizing contact interfaces and investigating the underlying phenomena, the boundary and environmental conditions within and around the interface are of the utmost importance. Having an instrumentation able to simulate contacts within a large panel of boundary parameters will allow for a fine reproduction and investigation of their physico-mechanical response, providing an innovative and versatile equipment at the disposal of Sapienza researchers.
In the different laboratories of La Sapienza, including the DIMA laboratories, specific tribometers are available, designed and dedicate to specific applications or research projects. Nevertheless, the already available instrumentation, conceived for specific contact configurations, is not capable to satisfy the different parametrical configurations needed for the large number of research lines and domains at Sapienza.
The flexibility of the proposed Multifunctional Tribometer will allow instead for investigating interfaces under an extremely large panel of configurations (high and low temperature conditions, humidity, both dry and lubricated conditions, rotative and/or linear motion, ...) supporting both fundamental investigations and development of innovative and sustainable technologies: brake liner materials producing low and health compatible airborne particles; transmission and engine interfaces with lower friction and consequent lower energy consumption; bio-compatible materials with optimized wear rates for human joint replacements; structural joints with lower fretting wear for reduction of maintenance and spare part replacements; new smart and nano-conceived material for interface optimization and control; low friction materials for components fabricated by additive manufacturing technics; ... Furthermore, the modularity of the proposed system will allow acquiring the main frame and modules by the funding of this project, while future implementations will be possible, in order to follow the needs of the forthcoming research projects.
In addition, a great number of industrial partners (e.g. BREMBO, SAFRAN, SKF aerospace, SOMFY, ...) are interested for the experimental characterizations of contact materials, which would be boosted by the use of the proposed equipment in Sapienza, thus increasing the university-industry interactions.
On another hand, dealing with specific projects focused on the physics of interfaces, the proposed equipment can set the stage for remarkable improvements in the experimental activities, paving the way to major advances dealing with ground-breaking fundamental understandings of important interface phenomena: rheology of interface third body, wave generation and propagation at the interfaces, rheological response of composites and/or nanostructured materials, thin lubricant films, interface response of polymers and reinforce polymers, rheological response of porous materials, temperature-friction evolution of carbon/carbon frictional materials, ...
In conclusion, such a flexible instrumentation for experimental simulation of interfaces, impacting several domains of research, is not actually present at La Sapienza and it will contribute to improve and boost innovation in the several related areas of research.