September 14, 2011

SIUC friction expert gives address at Cambridge

by Tim Crosby

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- A Southern Illinois University Carbondale engineering researcher recently gave a talk overseas at a prestigious university in the United Kingdom.

Peter Filip, director of the Center for Advanced Friction Studies in the College of Engineering SIUC, spoke at the University of Cambridge on Sept. 1, where he was invited to give an address.  Filip, who specializes in brake wear, spoke on the environmental aspects of brake wear debris.

Ian Hutchings, a professor at Cambridge and a world-leading expert on wear, invited Filip to give the presentation.  Hutchings also is editor-in-chief of the international engineering journal Wear.

Filip said the SIUC Center for Advanced Friction Studies’ status as a top research center for studying wear has resulted in eight recent invitations to deliver invited and keynote lectures.  For example, Filip recently presented an invited distinguished lecture at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, another leader in tribology, a branch of mechanical engineering that focuses on the study of interacting surfaces in relative motion

The advisory board of Euro Brake 2012, the top European meeting on brake materials, recently invited Filip to serve as a member.  The Center for Advanced Friction studies also recently has published four highly cited papers in engineering journals, including one by Filip that is among the top 1 percent most-highly cited papers in the field worldwide.

Filip’s talk at Cambridge, and other recent accomplishments and appearances, helps spread the word about the cutting-edge wear research conducted at SIUC.

“This brims worldwide publicity and recognition,” Filip said.  “There are several world leaders working at Cambridge. Cambridge hosts many top researchers from the entire world, which makes international collaborations possible.”

The Center for Advanced Friction Studies at SIUC focuses on industry-sponsored research in the areas of carbon composites, polymer composites, thermal effects, wet friction and non-destructive evaluations of brakes.  Its mission is to pursue knowledge in friction and education while training undergraduate and graduate students in subject areas of interest to the friction industry and the state of Illinois.  Students at the center learn by conducting research.

The center’s industrial advisory board includes leading companies such as the Boeing Co., Honeywell, Link Engineering, Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems Corp., Airstar and Tribo Inc.