Consultancy and Facilities

Consultancy

The group regularly carries out work on a consultancy basis, covering all aspects of tribology and tribological applications. We have a wide range of commercial lubrication test equipment and custom-built test rigs, many of which can be adapted to investigate similar applications. Computational modelling of tribological components can also be carried out. For further information see our facilities below, similar projects, or contact a member of the academic staff.

Facilities

Lubricant Characterisation:

Experiments

  • Stabinger viscometer
  • TA rheometer CS
  • Perkin Elmer FTIR spectrometer
  • WiTec Raman spectrometer
  • PCS ultrahigh shear rate viscometer (106 - 107 s-1), (two)
  • Mid shear rate viscometer (105 - 106 s-1)
  • High shear rate capillary viscometer
  • Refractometer

Surface Characterisation:

  • AFM (topometric explorer)
  • AFM + nanoindenter (nanoscope IV)
  • WiTec AFM-Raman
  • Taylor Hobson Form Talysurf
  • SEM-EDAX
  • Bruker Veeco optical profilometer
  • FIBS-TEM (Materials Dept.)

Tribometers:

  • PCS ultrathin film interferometry (EHL rigs), (four)
  • Transient speed ultrathin film interferometry 
  • PCS minitraction machine (MTM), (ten, five with spacer layer imaging - SLIM)
  • PCS minitraction machine-high load (MTM-HL)
  • PCS high frequency reciprocating rig (HFRR), (two)
  • Bowden Leben low speed friction tester
  • In-contact thermal microscope rig
  • In-contact laser induced fluorescence (LIF)
  • In-contact molecular fluorescence
  • In-contact molecular phosphorescence
  • Low load tribometer
  • CETR low speed tribometer, (two)
  • Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) tribometer
  • Gear run-down rig
  • Smearing rig
  • High temperature tribometer (up to 1000oC)
  • PCS micropitting rig (MPR), (four)
  • Back to back gear machine
  • Rotating-bending rig (fretting)
  • REB endurance rig
  • PCS Journal bearing rig (JBR)
  • PCS biotribometer (BTM)

Computational Resources:

  • HP Z820 40-CPU (Intel Xeon Phi) workstations, (ten)
  • Imperial Research Computing Service (RCS)
  • Tribology Group cluster (cx1 privileged queue) - ten Broadwell nodes (240 CPUs) with InfiniBand

Office

Refurbished lab and office spaces

Spin off: PCS Instruments Leaders in Tribology Test Equipment