Tribology Laboratories and Equipment
Georgia Tech has several facilities and equipment across campus for measuring friction, lubrication, and wear behavior of interacting surfaces.
- Laboratory for Extreme Tribology & Diagnostics
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- Zygo optical surface profilometer
- Nanovea micro-hardness and scratch tester
- Leica DM4000M optical microscope
- CETR pin-on-disc tribometer customized with electric current
- high-speed tribometer that can accelerate projectiles at mach speeds
POC: Rick Cowan
- Tribology and Rheology Laboratory
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- many custom tribometers including pin-on-disc, optical EHL, twin-disc EHL
- many falling-body high-pressure viscometers
- several high-pressure Couette viscometers for shear-thinning
- several dilatometers and piezometers for PVT measurements on liquids
- numerous other high-pressure instruments
- mechanical face seal diagnostics test rig
- rotordynamics of a cracked shaft test rig
- thrust washer bearing for automotive transmission test rig
- viscous linear pump
- viscoelastic relaxation tester
POC: Scott Bair
- Tribology & Surface Engineering Lab
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- characterization: environmental SEM equipped with custom-built in-situ microtribometer; optical and mechanical profilers; optical microscope; microhardness tester; contact angle measurement device
- testing: several custom-built tribometers for measuring dry and lubricated friction in unidirectional and reciprocal sliding, as well as for modeling adhesive, abrasive and fretting wear
- surface treatment: devices based on abrasive and cold working processes
POC: Michael Varenberg
- Other Tribology Equipment located on campus
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- Phoenix Tribology DN55 fretting and reciprocating sliding tester (POC: Richard W. Neu)
- CSM linear tribometer (POC: Hamid Garmestani)
- CSM micro scratch tester (POC: Hamid Garmestani)