N - Tribology: mechanics, physics and chemistry of solid-solid and solid-liquid interfaces

Symposium organizers

Guillaume Anciaux (EPFL, Switzerland)
Nicolas Fillot  (INSA Lyon, France)
Clotilde Minfray  (Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France)
Michael Moseler  (Fraunhofer IWM, Germany)
Lars Pastewka (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany) - point of contact
Izabela Szlufarska (University of Wisconsin, USA)

Symposium description

Tribological phenomena, such as adhesion, friction, lubrication and wear, control our everyday interaction with the environment and determine the function of most mechanical devices. They are responsible for the energy efficiency of a car and the lifetime of a grinding tool. Central to tribology is an interface: solid-solid under dry conditions and solid-third body-solid in the case of lubrication or when a surface has experienced wear. In the last case, the “third-body” is a material that forms under the action of the external load and that often acts as a solid lubricant. This is evidence that tribology requires models for the physics and chemistry of deformation very far from equilibrium. The geometric heterogeneity of surfaces, such as the typical roughness with a self-affine scaling over many decades in length-scale, renders modeling and simulation even more complicated. Therefore multi-scale approaches are naturally required. To capture the full complexity of a tribological contact, electronic structure theory describing Ångström-scale chemistry must be coupled to an atomistic description of surface plasticity and liquid or third-body lubrication that feed into continuum models for the contact of rough surfaces over millimeter scales. We therefore strive to bring together researchers working on aspects of electronic structure theory, atomistic models, discrete dislocation dynamics, and continuum models with a focus on processes at and near interfaces and the influence of interface geometry. Covering a wide range of scales and coupling mechanics, physics and chemistry, is a challenge for the modeling community, but also an opportunity to gain further understanding of phenomena that are still inaccessible by experiments. In order to make contact to experiments wherever possible and discuss modeling needs, experimentalists are strongly encouraged to actively participate by presenting talks in this symposium. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Physical chemistry of surfaces under the action of an external load (mechanochemistry)
• Lubrication of interfaces from atomic to continuum scales
• Elastic and elastoplastic contact between rough surfaces
• Third body formation by tribo-induced structural and chemical transitions
• Microstructural evolution in sliding contacts
• Methods for realistic mechanical and thermal boundary conditions in atomic- and mesoscale models
• Coupling quantum with atomistic and atomistic with continuum scale models 
  
  

Invited speakers:

• Jay Fineberg (Hebrew University, Israel)
  Friction is Fracture: Classical shear cracks drive the onset of frictional motion

• Konstantinos Gkagkas (Toyota Motor Europe NV/SA, Belgium)
  The impact of coulombic interactions among polar molecules and metal substrates on lubrication properties

• Momoji Kubo (Tohoku University, Japan)
  Tight-binding quantum chemical molecular dynamics simulations on tribochemical reaction dynamics of diamond-like carbon thin films

• Jean-Francois Molinari (EPFL, Switzerland)
  An adhesive wear map for rough surfaces in dry sliding contact

• Martin Müser (University of Saarland, Germany)
  Adhesion between elastic solids: From single-wavelength roughness to self-affine surfaces

• Daniel Nélias (INSA Lyon, France)
  Rolling, sliding and fretting contact of viscoelastic materials

• Erio Tosatti (SISSA, ICTP, CNR-IOM Democritos, Italy)
  Thermodynamics of the Aubry superlubric-pinned transition in D=2 dimensions