US-Switzerland Cooperative Research: Relationship between the Processing of Ceramics and their Tribological Performance

该奖项支持史蒂文斯理工学院的Traugot Fischer教授与瑞士洛桑联邦理工学院陶瓷实验室的Alain Mocellin教授在材料工程研究方面进行合作。他们合作的目标是加强对某些先进陶瓷特性和实现这些特性的加工技术的了解。这家瑞士集团将准备具有良好定义的工艺和性能的测试陶瓷，并将这些提供给美国集团进行进一步研究。史蒂文斯的摩擦学研究将把陶瓷的摩擦磨损与材料的机械性能联系起来。这些特性取决于颗粒的大小、添加剂的性质和加工。这种协作安排有效地将两个拥有互补设备的实验室联系在一起，以生产、表征和测试新型陶瓷材料的行为。目前，许多国家都在积极开发和应用新型高性能陶瓷。已经取得了一些显著的成就，主要是在金属成形和切割行业，但这些材料的更广泛应用，例如在纺织机械和先进发动机中，仍然遇到喜忧参半的结果。这些材料的制造和应用的成功将伴随着我们对它们的特性和生产工艺的进一步了解的发展。

This award supports Professor Traugott Fischer of Stevens Institute of Technology to collaborate in materials engineering research with Professor Alain Mocellin of the Ceramics Laboratory of the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. The objective of their collaboration is to enhance understanding of the properties of certain advanced ceramics and of the processing techniques for achieving them. The Swiss group will prepare test ceramics with well defined processing and properties, and provide these to the U.S. group for further study. Tribological research at Stevens will then relate friction and wear of the ceramics to the mechanical properties of the materials. These properties depend on the size of the grains, the nature of the additives and the processing. The collaborative arrangement efficiently links two laboratories with complementary equipment to produce, characterize and test the behavior of novel ceramic materials. There is presently intense activity in many countries with the aim of developing and applying novel high performance ceramics. Some notable successes have been achieved, mainly in the metal forming and cutting industries, but the wider application of these materials, for example in textile machinery and advanced engines, is still meeting with mixed results. Success in the fabrication and application of these materials will follow the further development of our understanding of their properties and of the processing techniques for producing them.