Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Tribology to Create Reliable, Efficient, Sustainable Transportation

规划拨款：摩擦学工程研究中心，打造可靠、高效、可持续的运输

• 批准号: 1840457
• 负责人: Robert Carpick
• 金额: $ 10万
• 依托单位: University of Pennsylvania
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1840457&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Planning; Grant; Engineering; Research; Center

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.Vehicles consume approximately 19% of the world's energy and produce approximately 23% of total greenhouse gas emissions each year. Over 30% of this energy consumption originates from simply overcoming losses due to friction and wear. Further, many new energy-efficient technologies are obstructed by issues related to friction and wear. For example, low viscosity lubricants can greatly reduce energy losses in engines and drivetrains, but there is still no solution to prevent the harsher wear that results when lower viscosity lubricants are used. Such new technologies are impeded by the lack of fundamental knowledge in tribology - the study of friction, lubrication, and wear. Related to this, there is a lack of advanced materials, components, and design approaches in industry that are aimed at reducing friction and wear. Moreover, the tribology workforce in the U.S. is ageing and dwindling due to a lack of education and training efforts. This planning grant will bring together a diverse set of innovators to identify the most promising technologies, the best-equipped team, and the most receptive industry and institute partners to form Tribo-CREST: the ERC for Tribology to Create Reliable, Efficient, Sustainable Transportation. Tribo-CREST will aim to transform the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of vehicle technologies with a primary focus on engines and drivetrains. The ERC this planning grant will be working towards will aim to produce new knowledge, methods, and facilities; transformative commercial impact; and a reinvigorated, diverse, tribology workforce.Tribology is a highly convergent research domain. Phenomena related to physics, chemistry, solid mechanics, surface science, fluid mechanics, thermal science, and materials science all exist and interact at the contact between two sliding surfaces. Tribologists must understand and predict these complex phenomena, which occur at a dynamic interface hidden from view. Thus, tribology solutions require the deep integration of knowledge at the intersections of multiple domains, new and innovative experimental and simulation tools, and diverse teams who can assemble the multi-faceted perspectives needed. While this poses tremendous challenges, it also illustrates the scale of the opportunity for a tribology-focused ERC. To accomplish this, the proposing team will identify methods, facilities, people, and industries whose partnership will result in an ERC proposal for cutting-edge research and education on vehicle engine and drivetrain technology. This involves studying advanced materials with engineered surfaces where performance hinges not only on strength, but on weakness: recent work has shown that the best engineered tribological systems achieve easy sliding while maintaining low wear through dynamic formation and regeneration of soft interfacial films. The planning grant team will integrate the input of 30-40 experts from academia, industry, research institutes, national laboratories, industry consortia, and professional societies, who will help formulate the basis for a visionary ERC. The team will assess how the ERC can exceed national averages for participation of women, minorities, Veterans, and first-generation low income students (FGLIs) by leveraging the diverse populations and successful diversity programs of the lead institutions: U.C.-Merced (53% Hispanic students); Texas A&M U. (10th nationwide in Hispanic PhDs and a top-ranked school for Veterans); U. Florida (in the top 10 for Hispanic and African American bachelor's and doctoral degrees); and U. Pennsylvania (a private university with need-blind admission whose engineering school has increased its FGLI population substantially in recent years).This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

工程研究中心规划补助金竞赛是作为 ERC 计划内的试点征集活动进行的。整个 ERC 竞赛并不需要规划拨款，而是旨在培养团队之间的能力，以规划融合的、中心规模的工程研究。车辆消耗约 19% 的世界能源，产生约 23% 的温室气体排放总量每年。超过 30% 的能源消耗源自于克服摩擦和磨损造成的损失。此外，许多新的节能技术都受到摩擦和磨损相关问题的阻碍。例如，低粘度润滑剂可以大大减少发动机和传动系统的能量损失，但仍然没有解决方案来防止使用较低粘度润滑剂时导致的更严重的磨损。此类新技术因缺乏摩擦学（摩擦、润滑和磨损的研究）基础知识而受到阻碍。与此相关的是，工业界缺乏旨在减少摩擦和磨损的先进材料、部件和设计方法。此外，由于缺乏教育和培训工作，美国的摩擦学劳动力正在老龄化和减少。这笔规划拨款将汇集多元化的创新者，以确定最有前途的技术、装备最好的团队以及最容易接受的行业和研究所合作伙伴，以形成 Tribo-CREST：摩擦学 ERC，以创造可靠、高效、可持续的运输。 Tribo-CREST 旨在改变车辆技术的效率、可靠性和可持续性，主要关注发动机和传动系统。这笔规划拨款将致力于 ERC 的目标是产生新的知识、方法和设施；变革性的商业影响；以及一支充满活力、多元化的摩擦学队伍。摩擦学是一个高度融合的研究领域。与物理、化学、固体力学、表面科学、流体力学、热科学和材料科学有关的现象都存在于两个滑动表面之间的接触处并相互作用。摩擦学家必须理解并预测这些复杂的现象，这些现象发生在看不见的动态界面上。因此，摩擦学解决方案需要深度整合多个领域交叉点的知识、新的创新实验和模拟工具，以及能够汇集所需多方面观点的多元化团队。虽然这带来了巨大的挑战，但它也说明了以摩擦学为重点的 ERC 的机遇规模。为了实现这一目标，提案团队将确定方法、设施、人员和行业，其合作将产生 ERC 对车辆发动机和传动系统技术前沿研究和教育的提案。这涉及到研究具有工程表面的先进材料，其性能不仅取决于强度，还取决于弱点：最近的研究表明，最好的工程摩擦学系统可以通过软界面膜的动态形成和再生实现轻松滑动，同时保持低磨损。规划资助团队将整合来自学术界、工业界、研究机构、国家实验室、行业联盟和专业协会的30-40名专家的意见，他们将帮助制定富有远见的ERC的基础。该团队将评估 ERC 如何通过利用领先机构的多元化人口和成功的多元化计划，在女性、少数族裔、退伍军人和第一代低收入学生 (FGLI) 的参与方面超越全国平均水平：加州大学默塞德分校 (53%)西班牙裔学生）；德克萨斯农工大学（西班牙裔博士学校排名全国第十，退伍军人学校排名第一）；佛罗里达大学（西班牙裔和非裔美国人学士和博士学位排名前十）；和美国宾夕法尼亚州（一所私立大学，其录取时不考虑需求，其工程学院近年来大幅增加了 FGLI 人数）。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。