World Tribology Congress 2009 (WTC IV)
Kyoto, Japan.
6th – 11th September 2009

In September 2009 the Fourth World Tribology Congress (WTC IV) took place in Kyoto, Japan. The conference was a hugely successful event and made an important contribution signposting the strategic direction by explicitly addressing the long established potential that the subject of tribology has in making a contribution to sustainable engineering and sustainable living. A summary of the technical programme is available at: http://www.wtc2009.jp/data/tec_pro.html Additionally a review of the event is available in the "Special Issue" ITC Newsletter, number 191.

Even though the Kyoto conference has only just finished planning has already begun for WTC V. Italian members are already beginning to put in place the arrangements for the 2013 event which will take place in Turin, Italy. We will report the exact date and any other details of the event as soon as they are confirmed.

The 2009 Tribology Gold Medal was presented to the Russian tribologist Prof Irina Goryacheva by the British Ambassador to Russia at the Ambassador’s new residence in Moscow on 25th May 2010. About 100 top Russian scientists, policy makers and representatives of Non-Governmental Organisations attended the ceremony. A key guest from the Russian Government was Mr Alexander Naumov, Director of Science and Technology at the Ministry of Education and Science. Dmitri Zimin of the philanthropic "Dynasty Foundation" also attended the event. During the ceremony the British Ambassador, Dame Anne Pringle, delivered a speech in Russian, Prof Gorycheva also made a speech as recipient of the medal.

Prof Goryacheva is an expert in contact mechanics and its applications to tribology. Much of her research has concentrated on predicting the stress at contacts between real rough surfaces with the aim of modelling wear. She is Head of the Tribology laboratory at the Ishlinsky Institute for Problems in Mechanics and is a member of the Russian Academy of Science. Prof Gorycheva has authored three books on tribology and is credited with over 200 papers and she holds the distinction of being the first female winner of highest award in tribology. Her career is outlined in the full citation for the medal presented as an appendix to this Newsletter.

Prior to WTV IV representatives of member countries of the ITC met in Kyoto to discuss the business of the ITC. Minutes of this meeting have been circulated to Vice Presidents, but we report the major outcomes from this meeting below.

ITC Chairman’s Report:
ITC Chairman, Prof Jost, explained that the world was now hugely different to that which existed when the ITC was formed by its founder members. There were now pressures on energy, materials and food in a way which had not been known before. He explained that a focus on tribology might give "breathing space" while fuller solutions to environmental problems were being addressed and suggested that tribology must fall into line with the major politics of world environment and energy. Further, Prof Jost explained that following the discussion of "Green Tribology" at the IET in the UK, the Chief Advisor to the Foreign Secretary said that tribology is now becoming of importance to the world. Prof. Jost also stated that "the time has come now to think of the purpose of our existence in the world", but cautioned that the financial effects should also be taken into account as it is easier to obtain funding to support work by looking at its economic advantage.

The Chairman asked representatives to look at his last three papers given at previous congress openings on education, customers (government) micro and macroeconomics, in addition to the paper given at WTC IV to see how their societies could meet the demands of today's world through their scientific and technical work. Many societies arrange meetings and conferences. Prof Jost believed they could do more. As an example, he referred to aspects of the quality of life and the development of biotechnology, citing developments in the potential use of stem cell technology in placing "lubrication layers" on damaged joints that may have a lifelong effect.

Prof Jost requested reports from societies on these topics to be sent to him and also prepared for inclusion in the ITC Newsletter.

New Members
Discussions about the election of new members concluded that Brazil and Switzerland would both elected as a full members of the ITC. Algeria, Chile and Mongolia were elected as Corresponding Members.

WTC VI Venue (Secretary's note)
It should be noted that member societies wishing to stage a WTC should inform the President of their intention to bid to stage the WTC event approximately six years before the event was scheduled to occur.

Tribology has experienced substantial development and increased interest in recent years in Brazil. In order to organise and make continue the Brazilian activities in Tribology, a Tribology Technical Division was created within the Associação Brasileira de Metalurgia, Materiais e Mineração-ABM (the Brazilian Association for Metallurgy, Materials and Mining). In order to celebrate this, the ABM is organizing the First International Brazilian Conference on Tribology, TriboBr-2010.

The scope of this multidisciplinary Conference will embrace state of art and future trends in tribology research and application. It will also provide an international forum for researchers and practitioners to exchange information, present new developments, establish new international personal networks and discuss the future directions and priorities of tribology. In particular, the generation and conservation of energy, the reduction of friction and wear and the preservation of the environment are of special concern therefore contributing to innovation in the 21st Century and to the sustainable growth of society. Contributions have been invited in the following areas:

The University of Southampton, UK has launched a major new £10 million research centre involving collaboration between seven of the university's academic schools and 28 industrial partner organisations. The National Centre for Advanced Tribology at Southampton (nCATS) was officially launched on Wednesday, 11th November, 2009 by the University's Vice-Chancellor Professor Don Nutbeam, and will offer solutions to real-life engineering problems.

nCATS Director Professor Robert Wood welcomed more than 150 guests from academia and industry to the event, including Professor H. Peter Jost CBE, who is credited with the concept and coining of the term 'tribology'.

Established in 2008 with a Science and Innovation grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Centre is developing strong links across the United Kingdom and beyond, looking into novel solutions to current and future tribological issues. nCATS close connections to industry is intended to enable the swift translation of research outputs into new designs. Professor Wood says: "nCATS will be the powerhouse for innovative design concepts enabling UK industry to lead the world in energy efficient and low cost systems, small scale devices and provide step-change solutions that will allow existing equipment to have prolonged life and work safely."

Based in the University of Southampton's School of Engineering Sciences, nCATS will use innovative multi-scale modelling, as well as analytical and experimental techniques to develop a better understanding of tribological processes at the atomistic, molecular, nano, micro and macro scales. The Centre has a strategic research partnership with the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) with access to their facilities, and is well-networked with the metrology and tribology groups at the Universities of Cambridge, Huddersfield and Leeds.

On 1st April 2010 the "Super-Project" XTribology – the Centre of Excellence for Tribology within the frame of the Austrian COMET program officially started its activities for the first funding period. The funding contract was signed recently by both the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (on behalf of the Austrian Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology) and the responsible host organisation, AC2T research GmbH, which was established about 8 years ago as the Austrian Center of Competence for Tribology (AC2T), a privately organised research institution.

AC2T successfully built up an interdisciplinary core team in tribology during the previous national technology program "Kplus" which was partly funded by the Austrian federal government and the regional government of Niederösterreich. This team submitted an ambitious research concept, named "XTribology" (cross tribology) within the Austrian COMET program, a national governmental initiative on funding Centres of Excellence. This concept was unanimously supported by an international jury for funding in the frame of the "COMET-K2" funding line, which means it achieved the top level of requirements for scientific approach, international visibility and overall budget while demonstrating the necessary involvement of the industry.

Picture: Celebration party for the COMET project XTribology
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Friedrich Franek (Scientific Head of AC²T research GmbH, left),
Dr. Andreas Pauchitz (General Manager of AC²T research GmbH, right)

The projects planned for the period 2010 – 2015 comprise the major areas: Lubricant and surface interaction, Wear processes, Integrated tribo-diagnostics and design and Multi-scale computational tribology.

In each of the areas there will be 4 to 6 projects with industrial partners from Austria and abroad and 2 to 3 strategic projects where international scientific partners will be involved. The total budget will be about EUR 59 m, 45 % of which have to be contributed by industry. Altogether there will be around 80 company-partners from Austria as well as from European and overseas countries and funding will not be restricted to Austrian partners. More than 30 scientific partners, notably the Vienna University of Technology are involved in the scientific tasks of the research program.

AC2T research GmbH currently has about 80 employees (April 2010) and will extend its activities and the number of employees to a number of about 180 within the next 2 years. The already excellent equipment and experience of the staff in Wiener Neustadt, 45 km south of Vienna, will be expanded as a part of the "Technopole Wiener Neustadt". Notable new activities at the "Technology and Research Center" include work in the area of surface characterisation, multi-scale modeling and lubricant analysis.

The Austrian Tribology Society holds a 25 % share of the registered capital and is the major share holder of the limited liability company managed by Dr. Andreas Pauchitz and Prof. Dr. Friedrich Franek.

We are sad to report that the world's first Professor of Tribology, Professor John Halling, died in August 2009 at the age of 88 years.

After graduating in Engineering from Imperial College, London, he taught at the Royal Military College of Science, Shrivenham and later became an enthusiastic teacher and researcher at the University of Liverpool.

In 1967 he was appointed Professor of Engineering Tribology at Salford University, following the coining of the word Tribology by the Jost Report in1966. He built a strong and internationally recognized research group, with interests as diverse as hydrostatic and hydrodynamic lubrication, friction and wear in ultra-high vacuum, stresses at contacting surfaces and the effects of surface coatings on tribological properties.

He lectured widely at home and abroad and was instrumental in the formation of Tribology societies in Egypt and Finland. He was invited to Finland in 1978 and lectured with great success, resulting in a great interest in Tribology both in academia and in industry. The resulting collaboration between UK and Finnish tribologists has been flourishing over the years is still active today.

John Halling was a pioneer in Tribology, an enthusiastic lecturer and a facilitator for numerous talented students who later made careers in Tribology science and in industry.

We are sad to report the death of Prof Avtandil Vissanionovich Chichinadze on the 20th March 2010. Prof Chichinadze was Founder and President of the Association of Tribology Engineers of Russia and was awarded the Tribology Gold Medal in 1991.

He is best known for his research work in heat dynamics and his studies on the simulation of friction and wear of tribo-pairs in conditions of dry friction and boundary lubrication. This work has been applied extensively in practical applications including aircraft, motor cars, tractors, road-construction equipment, railway and agricultural equipment. This work as listed by the USSR Academy of Sciences in its list of "most important achievements" in 1987-88.

Prof Chichinadze published extensively. At the time he was awarded the Tribology Bronze Medal in 1991, he was the author of more than 370 works (including 20 monographs and handbooks), as well as being the originator of 32 inventions.

The President of the ITC, Prof H. P. Jost has been awarded the "Golden Medal for Outstanding Contribution in Tribology" by the Chinese Tribology Institute (CTI). The highest award made by the CTI, which is only presented every four years, to a maximum number of four people.

The award made to Prof Jost was for "the encouragement of development of tribology in China". It was also the only one for valued contributions to the industrial application of tribology in China and the first and only award to a foreign tribologist.

Unfortunately, Prof Jost was unable to attend the ceremony, but was represented by Dr David Bacon, the United Kingdom Counsellor for Science and Innovation at the British Embassy in Beijing. The ceremony took place on the 19th October 2009 in Beijing.

The International Seminar on "Tribology and Ecology" took place at the State Baumann University in Moscow during over the 22nd and 23rd April 2010 under the Chairmanship of Prof.Dr. Erochin. The event included a paper by the ITC President, H Peter Jost, on 'Green Tribology – Achievements and Challenges'. In all there were 58 contributions of the Seminar which was considered a great success.

Picture: Tribology Gold Medallist, Academician Garkunov addressing the meeting

The Tribology Group at Imperial College have announced the establishment of an SKF University Technology Centre (UTC) in "Advanced Modelling and Measurements" in tribology. The arrangement formalises a long established link between SKF and the Imperial College group and aims to support a broader scope of fundamental research work in tribology and ensure that the results of research work are effectively applied to SKF applications.

The agreement will last for five years and associated funding from SKF will support day to day operation and a number of PhD students who will work on projects within the UTC.

Prof Hugh Spikes will be the UTC Director and Dr Amir Kadiric will be UTC manager.

ECOTRIB and Viennano will take place together in Vienna over the period 7th June 2011 to 9th June 2011, almost ten years after the second World Tribology Congress was hosted in Vienna in 2001.

ECOTRIB 2011 will be the third biennial conference primarily focused on the economy and industrial landscape of Central and South Europe and will be organised by the Austrian Tribology Society, assisted by the Austrian Center of Competence for Tribology and the Vienna University of Technology. The Italian Tribology Association, the Slovenian Society for Tribology and the Swiss Tribology Society will be co-organizers of the conference.

It will consider the challenge that tribology and tribologists face when coping with the task of technological development while considering both the economic situation and ecological needs as addressed by the acronym of the conference.

Viennano will address mechanical aspects of nanotechnology which to date have been rather poorly understood and developed little depite considerable global effort to improve understanding. Nanotribology has not only a fundamental importance, but also an immense range of potential practical applications.

Nanomaterials exhibit quite different mechanical properties to materials when they are considered at a macroscopic level. Material strength, scratch hardness as well as friction and wear are strongly influenced by the nanostructure. In addition, in the presence of gaseous or liquid media such as lubricants, the material properties vary over a wide range. These aspects will influence the operation of equipment practical applications, ranging from precision systems to precision surface engineering, tribological systems, microsystems and actuators.

The call for papers, full details of the topics to be addressed and other conference information can be found at the conference web site:

The Editor of the ITC newsletter is seeking contacts able to send news items for the ITC Newsletter. Ideally, correspondents should be able to send one or two news items per year. Articles should be written using WORD, be one to three paragraphs long and may be accompanied by a single picture if appropriate. News items should have an international interest.

If you are able to act as a correspondent, please contact the ITC Newsletter Editor: Prof. I. Sherrington isherrington@uclan.ac.uk

As you may have seen in editions of the ITC newsletter we are seeking to facilitate improved communication, by upgrading the ITC web site to include e-mail contact details for all member societies listed there.

We thank those member societies which responded to our notice regarding submission of electronic contact details in the last issue of the ITC Newsletter. However, we still do not have replies from everyone. We are, therefore, asking member societies to review their details on: http://www.itctribology.org/mem.html and to send e-mail contact addresses and any corrections to existing details, to: itcsecretariat@aol.com

We are also asking that Vice Presidents and Corresponding Members provide us with corrections, as well as e-mail contact details to facilitate communication between themselves and the ITC Secretariat. (Email details will not be published on the web page.) Current details can be found at:

Details of the following Meetings and Conferences are given in the Meetings and Conferences section of the web site:

2010
8th – 11th June 2010 - NORDTRIB (Luleå, Sweden)
28th June – 2nd July 2010 - COMADEM (Nara, Japan)
7th – 9th July 2010 - INSYCONT 2010 (Cracow, Poland)
15th – 17th Sept. 2010 - 18th Annual Cambridge Tribology Course (Cambridge, UK)
7th October 2010 - 9th EDF-LMS Workshop (Poitiers, France)
17th - 20th October 2010 - Int Joint Trib Conf (San Francisco, USA)
25th Oct – 1st Nov 2010 - VI Int Symp on Tribo Fatigue (Minsk, Belarus)
4th – 6th November 2010 - ROTRIB ’10 (Iaşi, Romania)
26th – 28th November 2010 - TriboBr-2010 (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
5th – 9th December 2010 - Asiatrib (Perth, Australia)

The Office of the President Dr H. P. Jost is:
Angel Lodge Chambers
Ground Floor
57 London Road
Enfield, Middlesex
EN2 6DU
United Kingdom

THE TRIBOLOGY TRUST

(Administered by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers)

CITATION

The 2009 Tribology Gold Medal

Awarded to

ACADEMICIAN IRINA GORYACHEVA

In recognition of her outstanding achievements in tribology in particular for her meritorious work in the field of contact mechanics and its application to tribology

Irina Goryacheva received her Master Degree and PhD (Candidate of Science) at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1973 she joined the Institute for Problems in Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Science (now named The Ishlinsky Institute for Problems in Mechanics). In 1979 she was awarded the Prize for young researchers in the field of science and technology and in 1988 the degree of Doctor of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics for her dissertation on "Contact Problems in Tribology". In 1996 she became the Head of the Institute's Tribology Laboratory and in the same year a Professor of the Moscow Institute (University) of Physics and Technology. In 1997 she was elected a corresponding member and in 2003 a full member of the Russian Academy of Science.

Professor Goryacheva is a specialist in contact mechanics and its applications to tribology, developing a method to calculate the nominal and real characteristics of contact areas of rough surfaces based on multiscale analysis and on the exact solution of the boundary problem for the system of contact spots comprising the real contact area. This approach forms a basis for the analysis of stresses in and near the contact region and for modelling the wear process of rough surfaces.

Her models of the simultaneous effects of contact discreteness and mechanical in-homogeneity of contacting bodies made it possible to analyse stresses within coatings and to determine the type of coating fracture for different loading conditions and surface roughness parameters. It was shown that the discreteness of loading plays a major role for relatively thin and hard coatings. She also investigated the influence of defects at the coating/substrate interface on the stress field and the type of coating fracture.

The adhesion forces caused by molecular interaction or by menisci of fluid formed near contacting tips of asperities are taken into account in her mathematical models, developed to analyse the influence of the surface microgeometry parameters, surface energy, properties of thin surface films and elastic moduli of contacting bodies on the contact pressure distribution, real contact area, and gap between the surfaces. The results obtained are used to calculate the adhesion component of friction force in rolling and sliding contacts of elastic and viscoelastic bodies.

In addition to her expertise in the selection of materials and the types of surface treatments used for Russian rail/wheel applications, her work has been applied in the tyre industry, by construction companies and in other industries.

In the recent past she obtained important results in the study of the influence of surface energy of elastic and viscous bodies and the properties of third bodies on adhesion of solids and energy losses in contact interaction. Applications include: nanotribology, microelectronics, micromechanics of granular material, engineering and atomic force microscopy.

From 1994 to 2000 Professor Irina Goryacheva was a visiting professor of Purdue University (USA). Here she collaborated with Professor F Sadeghi on modelling of lubricated contact of viscoelastic rough bodies, and with Professor T Farris on calculation of the evolution of the contact characteristics and internal stresses in fretting process.

Her contributions in the educational field covers both undergraduate and graduate students in mechanical engineering and tribology. She lectures in courses on contact mechanics at the Lomonosov Moscow State University and at the Moscow University of Physics and Technology. She is a supervisor of PhD and Master Degree students specialising in tribology.

Professor Goryacheva is the author of three books "Contact Problems in Tribology" (1988 Mashinostroenie), "Contact Mechanics in Tribology" (1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers, 344p), "Mechanics of Friction Interaction" (2001, Nauka 478p). She is the co-author of the first manual "Fundamentals of Tribology" published in Russia in 2001, monographs "Contact Mechanics" (2001 Nauka, 670) and "Friction Wear and Lubrication" (2003 Mashinostroenie 712p). She is credited with more than 200 papers in leading journals.

For clearness in expressing the basic concepts, as well as for her rigour in applying these concepts to overcome problems in engineering, Academician Goryacheva is a shining example of the academic teacher and researcher. Her contribution to science and engineering and her outstanding service, not only to Russian Science, but also Science worldwide, makes her a worthy recipient of the world's highest award in tribology, the Tribology Gold Medal.

THE 2009 TRIBOLOGY GOLD MEDAL