New national research centre set to tackle future engineering challenges

Tribology - the essential science of friction, lubrication and wear of all interacting surfaces in relative motion - is crucial to the successful operation of engineered machines and natural mechanisms of all scales. The science is core to the future of energy efficient transport and machines, the control of emissions, and low maintenance renewable energy systems and therefore impacts on key quality of life issues such as energy, the environment and health.

The Centre is funded by the largest-ever grant awarded to tribology by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Science and Innovation Awards. The funding is worth £3.3 million over five years and will ensure that the UK remains a leader in the field. The Centre is also funded by the University of Southampton and industry partners bringing total funding to £10 million over the five years.

Director of the Centre, Professor Robert Wood, comments: "Tribology in the UK has just celebrated its 50th birthday, so the establishment of the Centre is timely. If the UK wants to remain at the forefront of manufacturing, investment in tribology is essential. We are aiming to compete at the highest level globally in terms of research and to lead the agenda for UK tribology research for the next 50 years."

nCATS will use innovative multiscale modelling and analytical and experimental techniques to develop a better understanding of tribological processes at the molecular, micro and nano scales.

Professor Wood continues: "The Southampton Centre will focus away from classical tribology and on new ways of working, using smart reactive surfaces, inbuilt sensors and novel probes for tribological processes. Biomemetics - design principles based on nature - are likely to inform much of our research. For example, by looking at how a gecko can walk on surfaces of any orientation - even upside down - and traps flies on its tongue, we can develop better adhesion principles to inform micro-robotics, which in the future will enable robotic devices to be put into the bloodstream or body."

Other research challenges include increasing the longevity of manufactured machine parts, particularly crucial, for example, in aircraft; and providing faster access and denser storage in computer hard drives. The Centre will also research new fundamental engineering and design principles to help industry partners develop new products to respond to the increasing pressure to reuse and recycle.

Future demands for lower energy consumption also require novel approaches in managing engine and machine friction, which nCATS will be central in developing. Such approaches will help reduce wear in machines of all scales to increase their life, reduce demand on raw materials, increase fuel efficiency and lower emissions. nCATS will help develop new low friction surfaces and lubricant chemistry that address those demands as well as being biodegradable. All this will require developments in multiscale modelling to allow greater understanding of interfaces under relative motion, says Professor Wood.

Tribological aspects of health care such as developing smart biomaterials for use in reconstructive surgery and replacement implants, smart stiction pads for micro-robots (mimicking nature), and bio-micro-electromechanical systems and miniature sensors for medical applications, will also be a focus for the Centre's research.

Based in the University's School of Engineering Sciences, nCATS will link to world-class research groups in six other schools at Southampton to develop multi-disciplinary colloborations. The Centre also has a strategic research partnership with the National Physical Laboratory with access to their facilities, as well as the metrology and tribology groups at the Universities of Cambridge, Huddersfield and Leeds.

Liaising closely with industry, nCATS will work initially with 25 industrial partners from oil companies to biotech companies. The Centre is currently recruiting to five lectureships and five post-doctoral research fellowships across a range of areas including biomedical and orthopaedic triblogy, nanotribology and smart tribological coatings. The appointees will develop and manage the multi-disciplinary research between the University's seven collaborating Schools.