April 14, 2011
SIUC to host inaugural forum on friction, vibration
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Southern Illinois University Carbondale will be the site of an international gathering of researchers specializing in a certain form of friction and vibration.
SIUC will host the first International Forum on Sliding Friction and Vibration, a two-day event set for Monday and Tuesday, April 18-19, in the Dean’s Conference Room, Engineering Building Rom E101.
Peter Filip, director of the Center for Advanced Friction Studies at SIUC, said while friction is all around us in our everyday lives, there is still much to learn about its nature.
“Friction is generally considered to be fully understood phenomenon. It is not the case, however, and a significant amount of new knowledge was generated and many mechanisms were understood in the past few years,” Filip said. “There is still a fair amount of controversy, and top world researchers are meeting here to have thorough two-day discussions.”
Filip said SIUC is honored to host the first such forum, which will include top researchers invited from around the world. The University was a natural location for such an event, given the Center for Advanced Friction Studies’ strong reputation.
“The center has a strong enough reputation in the field and advanced labs to initiate this and to host this event,” Filip said. “Our research is recognized worldwide and this will bring additional publicity.”
After arriving on Sunday, experts will settle in and on Monday discuss important friction- and vibration-related questions and phenomena. During the forum, they will ponder whether the mechanical actions are knowable, how they interact with different molecules and examine different modeling techniques. Other sessions will deal with sliding friction’s role in gear dynamics and “noise,” methods of controlling friction with ultrasonic oscillations and the interaction between friction and vibration. On Monday, participants also will tour SIUC laboratory facilities.
Tuesday will bring additional scholarly presentations on the effects of friction and vibration in different situations. Researchers will consider their role in braking, a mainstay of the Center for Advanced Friction Studies’ work. They will study braking effects, heat build-up and sliding friction in brakes, as well as the effect of adaptive coatings for high temperature tribology, as presented by Samir Aoudi, associate professor of physics at SIUC.
The day ends with a group discussion and planning for future events.
Filip said the forum would bring added prestige to SIUC and its reputation for leading research in this subject area.
“This meeting should result in publication of new textbook and help attract students, and the output should also serve the industries supporting our research,” Filip said.