Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Tribology to Create Reliable, Efficient, Sustainable Transportation

规划拨款：摩擦学工程研究中心，打造可靠、高效、可持续的运输

• 批准号: 1840457
• 负责人: Robert Carpick
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1840457&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Planning; Grant; Engineering; Research; Center

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Vehicles consume approximately 19% of the world's energy and produce approximately 23% of total greenhouse gas emissions each year. Over 30% of this energy consumption originates from simply overcoming losses due to friction and wear. Further, many new energy-efficient technologies are obstructed by issues related to friction and wear. For example, low viscosity lubricants can greatly reduce energy losses in engines and drivetrains, but there is still no solution to prevent the harsher wear that results when lower viscosity lubricants are used. Such new technologies are impeded by the lack of fundamental knowledge in tribology - the study of friction, lubrication, and wear. Related to this, there is a lack of advanced materials, components, and design approaches in industry that are aimed at reducing friction and wear. Moreover, the tribology workforce in the U.S. is ageing and dwindling due to a lack of education and training efforts. This planning grant will bring together a diverse set of innovators to identify the most promising technologies, the best-equipped team, and the most receptive industry and institute partners to form Tribo-CREST: the ERC for Tribology to Create Reliable, Efficient, Sustainable Transportation. Tribo-CREST will aim to transform the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of vehicle technologies with a primary focus on engines and drivetrains. The ERC this planning grant will be working towards will aim to produce new knowledge, methods, and facilities; transformative commercial impact; and a reinvigorated, diverse, tribology workforce.Tribology is a highly convergent research domain. Phenomena related to physics, chemistry, solid mechanics, surface science, fluid mechanics, thermal science, and materials science all exist and interact at the contact between two sliding surfaces. Tribologists must understand and predict these complex phenomena, which occur at a dynamic interface hidden from view. Thus, tribology solutions require the deep integration of knowledge at the intersections of multiple domains, new and innovative experimental and simulation tools, and diverse teams who can assemble the multi-faceted perspectives needed. While this poses tremendous challenges, it also illustrates the scale of the opportunity for a tribology-focused ERC. To accomplish this, the proposing team will identify methods, facilities, people, and industries whose partnership will result in an ERC proposal for cutting-edge research and education on vehicle engine and drivetrain technology. This involves studying advanced materials with engineered surfaces where performance hinges not only on strength, but on weakness: recent work has shown that the best engineered tribological systems achieve easy sliding while maintaining low wear through dynamic formation and regeneration of soft interfacial films. The planning grant team will integrate the input of 30-40 experts from academia, industry, research institutes, national laboratories, industry consortia, and professional societies, who will help formulate the basis for a visionary ERC. The team will assess how the ERC can exceed national averages for participation of women, minorities, Veterans, and first-generation low income students (FGLIs) by leveraging the diverse populations and successful diversity programs of the lead institutions: U.C.-Merced (53% Hispanic students); Texas A&M U. (10th nationwide in Hispanic PhDs and a top-ranked school for Veterans); U. Florida (in the top 10 for Hispanic and African American bachelor's and doctoral degrees); and U. Pennsylvania (a private university with need-blind admission whose engineering school has increased its FGLI population substantially in recent years).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

工程研究中心规划奖助金竞赛是作为ERC计划的试点征集活动进行的。计划拨款并不是整个ERC竞赛的一部分，而是为了在团队之间建立能力，以规划汇聚的、中心规模的工程研究。车辆每年消耗约19%的世界能源，产生约23%的温室气体排放。超过30%的能源消耗来自于克服摩擦和磨损造成的损失。此外，许多新的节能技术都受到与摩擦和磨损有关的问题的阻碍。例如，低粘度润滑油可以大大减少发动机和动力传动系统的能量损失，但仍没有解决方案来防止在使用低粘度润滑油时导致的更严重的磨损。这些新技术由于缺乏摩擦学的基础知识而受到阻碍，摩擦学是研究摩擦、润滑和磨损的学科。与此相关的是，工业中缺乏旨在减少摩擦和磨损的先进材料、部件和设计方法。此外，由于缺乏教育和培训努力，美国的摩擦学劳动力正在老龄化和减少。这笔规划拨款将汇集一系列不同的创新者，以确定最有前途的技术、最好的设备团队以及最具接受力的行业和研究所合作伙伴，以成立Tribo-Crest：摩擦学ERC，以创造可靠、高效、可持续的交通。Tribo-Crest将致力于改变车辆技术的效率、可靠性和可持续性，主要专注于发动机和动力传动系统。这项计划拨款将致力于ERC，旨在产生新的知识、方法和设施；具有变革性的商业影响；以及一支重新焕发活力的、多样化的摩擦学工作力量。摩擦学是一个高度融合的研究领域。与物理、化学、固体力学、表面科学、流体力学、热科学和材料科学有关的现象都存在于两个滑动面的接触面上，并相互作用。摩擦学家必须理解和预测这些复杂的现象，这些现象发生在隐藏在视线之外的动态界面上。因此，摩擦学解决方案需要深度整合多个领域的交叉领域的知识、新的创新的实验和模拟工具，以及能够汇集所需多方面观点的不同团队。虽然这带来了巨大的挑战，但它也说明了专注于摩擦学的ERC的机会之大。为了实现这一目标，提议团队将确定方法、设施、人员和行业，这些方法、设施、人员和行业的合作伙伴关系将导致ERC提议在车辆发动机和传动系统技术方面进行尖端研究和教育。这涉及到研究具有工程表面的先进材料，其中性能不仅取决于强度，还取决于弱点：最近的研究表明，最好的工程摩擦学系统可以通过动态形成和再生柔软的界面膜来实现轻松滑动，同时保持低磨损。规划资助小组将整合来自学术界、产业界、研究机构、国家实验室、行业财团和专业协会的30-40名专家的意见，他们将帮助制定一个有远见的环境与合作伙伴关系的基础。该团队将评估ERC如何通过利用主要机构的多样化人口和成功的多样性项目，在女性、少数族裔、退伍军人和第一代低收入学生(FGLI)的参与方面超过全国平均水平：加州大学默塞德分校(53%的西语裔学生)；德克萨斯农工大学(在全国西语裔博士和退伍军人学校中排名第10)；佛罗里达大学(在西语裔和非裔学士和博士学位方面排名前10)；这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。