Centres of expertise on tribology in the UK

Citation

Margaroni, D. (1998), "Centres of expertise on tribology in the UK", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 50 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ilt.1998.01850caf.003

Centres of expertise on tribology in the UK

Centres of expertise on tribology in the UK

David Margaroni

Keywords: Centres of excellence, Tribology, United Kingdom

There are a number of well established centres of tribological expertise within the UK; it is the intention to provide a brief description of each centre in turn in this and in future issues of Industrial Lubrication and Tribology.

Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine, London

Tribology Section, Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2BX.

Contact: Dr Philippa Cann.

Tel. 0171 594 7064; Fax. 0171 823 8845.

The Tribology Section at Imperial College is one of the largest university or college lubrication research groups in Europe. It has three academic staff and about 20 PhD students and research assistants, about half of whom are from overseas. Virtually the whole field of tribology is covered. Over 80 per cent of the sections' funding comes from industry and the rest from EPSRC and other government grants. The three members of staff are Dr A.V. Olver, Dr R.S. Sayles and Professor H.A. Spikes.

Below is a list of current full-time research projects, in chronological order of start date:

(1) Mechanisms of particle deformation in contacts.(2) Testing and performance of high temperature lubricants.(3) Temperature and rheology of lubricants in elastohydrodynamic contacts.(4) Elastohydrodynamic properties of water-based fluids.(5) Measurement of nano lubricant films in contacts.(6) Electrochemical control of boundary lubrication.(7) Grease lubrication.(8) Mechanisms of boundary lubrication.(9) Fuel lubricity.(10) Lubrication mechanisms in CV joints.(11) Tribological performance of coatings.(12) Thermal performance of coatings.(13) Wear and damage in high speed bearings.(14) The behaviour of viscosity index improvers in engine oils.(15) Debris induced wear mechanisms in rolling and sliding contacts.(16) Surface engineering of ball bearings.(17) Advanced gear steels.(18) Fretting.(19) Lubricant film formation by base fluid blends.(20) Mechanisms of molybdenum additives.(21) Novel antiwear additives.(22) Behaviour of colloidal particles in lubricated contacts.(23) Friction properties of plastics.

The 24th Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology was actually held at the Imperial College last year in September, the reason for the change in venue being the fact that the following week, the World Tribology was also held in London. Since a number of delegates were attending both events, excessive "wear, fatigue and stress" of these delegates was successfully overcome by suitably timetabling the two events in the same city.

The college has also been in the forefront of the development of items of test equipment, many of which have now been commercialised and are being manufactured and marketed by PCS Instruments, London.

The High Frequency Reciprocating Rig, described elsewhere in the article on fuel lubricity in this issue, is a computer controlled reciprocating friction and wear test system which provides a fast, repeatable assessment of the performance of fuels and lubricants.

Typical applications of the instrument include:

• •

  evaluation of new diesel and gasoline additives;

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  determination of optimum additive dose rates for raw fuels;

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  quality assurance of outgoing products and incoming materials to ensure conformity with specifications;

• •

  boundary friction coefficient measurements for automobile fuel economy modelling.

The Ultra Thin Film Measurement System is a computer controlled instrument for measuring the film thickness and traction coefficient (friction coefficient) of lubricants in the elastohydrodynamic lubricating regime. The instrument can measure lubricant film thicknesses down to 1nm. With a precision of +/­1nm. Traction coefficient can be measured at any slide/roll ratio from pure rolling up to 100 per cent. The instrument measures these lubricant properties in the contact formed between a steel ball and a rotating glass or steel disc. The contact pressures and shear rates in this contact are similar to those found in, for example, gears, rolling element bearings and cams.

Typical applications of the instrument include:

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  evaluation of film forming and frictional properties of oils and greases;

• •

  fuel economy prediction of candidate oils;

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  performance prediction of oil in water emulsion rolling mill lubricants;

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  fundamental investigations of the high pressure/high shear behaviour of fluids such as liquid crystals;

• •

  investigation of boundary additive performance.

The MTM Traction Measurement System is a computer controlled, precision traction measurement instrument which provides fully automated traction mapping of lubricants and other fluids. The machine simulates the lubrication regime found in non-conformal components such as cams, valve trains, gears and rolling element bearings. The test contact is formed between a polished 3/4in. ball and a 46mm. diameter disc, each independently driven to produce a sliding/rolling contact.

Typical applications of the instrument include:

• •

  fuel economy modelling of automotive engine oils;

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  boundary additive performance evaluation;

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  traction measurement under elastohydrodynamic, mixed and boundary lubrication.

Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool

Merseyside Tribology Centre, James Parsons Building, Byrom Street, Liverpool L3 3AF.

Contact: Mr. John Hadley

Tel. 0151 231 2124; Fax. 0151 231 2124

The Merseyside Triblogy Centre seeks to work with manufacturing companies to support the development of new processes and products in the field of engineering tribology. Funding is provided by the European Regional Development Funding programme, industry, in the form of staff and equipment, and also by the university itself. There is a high proportion of overseas students; the college is also involved in organising overseas courses on the subject of tribology. The manager of the centre, John Hadley, during his previous period at Shell Research Centre, Thornton, had been involved with much of the earlier investigational work on the subject of fuel lubricity, and is now involved in teaching tribological design.

Staff members include Professor John Mills and Dr Michael Morgan.

Projects in which the centre is currently involved include:

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  water lubricated rubber bearings;

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  cutting/grinding/ machining lubricants;

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  tabletting processes;

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  low friction coatings;

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  wire drawing lubricants;

• •

  cutting tool coatings.

A large machine shop was involved in the practical investigation of the various machining processes, notably grinding, on which subject a number of papers had been published, covering areas such as wheel wear, investigation of the contact behaviour the effect of the deformation of the contact area, analysis and simulation of the process, and grinding temperatures and energy partitioning.