What do alternative fuel technology, artificial joints and military vehicles operating in the Middle East have in common?
They all stand to benefit from research being done by the Illinois Center for Advanced Tribology (ICAT), a virtual center formed by Argonne National Laboratory and three partnering universities: Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Illinois at Chicago. Tribology is the study of interacting surfaces in relative motion. This includes the friction, lubrication and wear of things like bearings and gears, but also human beings and virtually everything else that moves. “ICAT members bring together complementary and in some cases unique capabilities to resolve critical wear and lubrication issues in the development of advanced alternative energy technologies and biomedical implants and improve functionality and longevity of systems that operate in extreme environments,” said George Fenske, manager of Argonne’s tribology group.
