When moving parts are in contact, involved materials contributing to friction and wear are determining the tribological performance of engineering components and machines. When developing of novel products for industrial use, up to date no efficient approach for tribological materials characterization is existing. The aim of i-TRIBOMAT is to fill this gap by establishing the world’s first open test bed dedicated to this purpose for validating and up-scaling conventional and new materials for mechanical components. i- TRIBOMAT is the user-driven open test bed enabling versatile characterization to support innovation in the European manufacturing industries by reducing material up-scaling costs and time to market, down to one fifth. To facilitate the intelligent tribological materials characterisation i-TRIBOMAT integrates the most important tribological testing facilities at EU level with user-driven IT tools to validate new materials for components.
Introduction of the new innovative material solutions into tribological applications will substantially reduce friction and protect materials from wear, directly influencing environmental effects and CO2 emission. Globally, total energy consumption could be lowered as well as CO2 emission reduced, by using new technologies. Energy efficiency is related not only to energy saving and reduced emissions, but can drive a number of “multiple benefits”, such as macroeconomic development, public budget increase, enhanced health and wellbeing, industrial productivity and energy delivery improvements. i-TRIBOMAT is accelerating the uptake of new and increasingly sustainable tribological solutions such as environmentally acceptable lubricants, bio-no-tox additives, renewable lubes, etc.
i-TRIBOMAT will provide the world’s first Open Innovation Test Bed dedicated to validating and up-scaling new materials. Intelligent tribological materials characterisation will be brought to market, fostering industrial innovation in the European manufacturing industry. The ultimate goal of i-TRIBOMAT is to reduce costs and time-to-market, when up-scaling materials.
This is being realized through several objectives that we have set as a priority:
-Establish the shared infrastructure for tribological materials characterisation and develop protocols providing new mechanistic information on materials tribological performance to support industrial materials up-scaling
-Bridge the gap between laboratory-scale tribological tests and field operation performance by specific up-scaling tools for faster deliver of new industrial material solutions
-Data sharing and harmonisation, and explore data analytics to foster materials up-scaling
-Validate i-TRIBOMAT services for highly relevant European industrial sectors – transport, energy and manufacturing
-Establish a sustainable European Single Entry Point (SEP) that acts as the collaboration, communication and user interface reducing time-to-market of materials
-Promote i-TRIBOMAT tribological services through Translators Network and collaborate with the European ecosystem
