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This year, the University of Leeds hosted the 48th Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology ” Tribology for a sustainable and resilient future”. The TrEnT UoL team not only presented their posters in the conference but also volunteered for various conference support activities. Simon Duston (PhD Student) and Dr. Khurshid Ahmad (Research Fellow) presented posters highlighting their work on  manufacturing of 3D nanostructures using tribo-based techniques.

TrEnT Team with delegates participating in the 48th Leeds-Lyon Symposium

Simon Duston Presenting his poster

Dr. Alaaeddin Al Sheikh Omar and Dr. Khurshid Ahmad

Two University of Sheffield students have presented their work funded by the TrEnT grant at Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology. Xuan (Jerry) Wang talked about his work on capsule endoscope tribology for intestinal tissue, and Aniebiet Macaulay discussed his progress on tribology of a synthetic finger for robotic grasping.

Jerry presenting his work at the 48th Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology

Mac presenting his work at the 48th Leeds-Lyon Symposium on Tribology

Mostafa Atalla from Delft University of Technology (TuDelft) in the Netherlands visited the University of Sheffield (UoS) as part of the EPSRC funded “Tribology as Enabling Technology” Project in early August 2023. He utilised this visit to enhance his PhD research focused on the development of ultrasound by utilising the techniques and equipment at the UoS. He had the opportunity to interact with a range of researchers within the University of Sheffield, including Post Doctoral Researchers and fellow PhD students. He was able to visit the labs and see the current research being performed at the UoS. We were able to identify ways we could apply his technology to our research to understand it more for better applications in the future. The research team, along with Mostafa, exceeded expectations and managed to collect an astounding amount of data in the 2 weeks he was visiting as well as identify future collaborations and research opportunities between the two groups. In addition Mostafa also got to experience some iconic British culture including a lot of rain in the Peak District and watching Manchester United play at Old Trafford!

An extremely successful visit all around with future collaborations already in the works!

Photo of Mostafa and Jerry Wang in the Leonardo Lab, UoS

Group photo of Gary Nicholas, Alan Martin, Ahranee Canden, Sam Davison, Mostafa Atalla, Daniel Williams, Phoebe Bramley and Emily Priest

Photo of Mostafa and Kate Tomlinson in Human Interactions Group Lab, UoS

Photo of Mostafa in the Leonardo Lab, UoS

Photo of Mostafa and Zing Lee in the Mechanical Engineering Labs, UoS

Group photo of Alan Martin, Mostafa Atalla and Prof Roger Lewis

The University of Leeds (UoL)’s  team working on the EPSRC funded project, entitled “Tribology as Enabling Technology (TRENT)”, led by Prof. Ardian Morina, visited NTNU.  PhD Students and Postdoctoral Scholars from both sides interacted with each other. The two teams exchanged the key information about progress that has been made so far. Prof. Morina briefed the participants about the overall progress and current state of the project. The NTNU team led by Prof. Zhiliang Zhang, briefed the team members about the current activities in their research group. Associate Professor Senbo Xiao enlightened the team on the progress made in the area of molecular modelling related to TRENT. In consultation with Prof. Jianyang He, new areas of collaboration were identified for which various actions and milestones were identified.

The team had a brief tour of the campus and various relevant laboratories. As the Principal Investigator of the project Prof. Morina thanked the NTNU team for hosting, their continued support and contribution to the TRENT project.

Tribology as an Enabling Technology (TrEnT) teams met in Stuttgart Germany, at Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Intelligent Systems, on June 12, 2023. Prof. Ardian Morina, who is Principal Investigator of the project and Prof. Matt Carré Co. Investigator briefed participants about progress on key objectives of the project. The team chalked out an action plan for the remaining duration of the project. Moreover, actions were defined for building partnerships beyond the lifetime of TrEnT program.

Prof. Morina, thanked all the participants, especially Prof. Zhiliang Zhang, Prof. Michael Ortiz,  Prof. Metin Sitti, Prof. Matt Carré, Prof. Roger Lewis, Assoc. Prof. Mark Wilson, Assoc. Prof. Krzysztof Kubiak, Assoc. Prof. Senbo Xiao and the Research Team Members from the partnering institutes. Participants appreciated the MPI team’s efforts for all arrangements.

TrEnT is an Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) funded project. It is jointly executed by teams from Institute of Functional Surfaces (IFS), University of Leeds, and The Leonardo Centre for Tribology, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, in collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Germany, Nano mechanical laboratory of Norwegian University of Science and technology (NTNU), Norway, and California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA.

Simon Duston, TrEnT Project team member received Gold Award in Student Poster Competition. 

Last month a group of researchers from the University of Leeds travelled to attend the STLE Annual Meeting in Long Beach, California. PhD student, Simon Duston, presented a poster on his research entitled “Graphene as a Conductivity Modifier in ZDDP Tribofilms for Use in 3D Tribo-Nanoprinting” for which he won the Gold Award in the Student Poster category. The research contributes to the TrEnT project by functionalising tribofilms for use in 3D Tribo-Nanoprinting. 

Simon Duston received Gold Award in Student Poster Competition

Left to right: Simon Duston, Rob Beadling, Michael Bryant, Sarah Crossland, Afrina Khan Piya, Abdullah Alenezi, Ardian Morina

Professor Matt Carre, Co. Investigator of the TRENT project and Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Sheffield will be delivering a  talk on: “Tribology as an enabling technology for surgical robotics” as part of a workshop session at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, (ICRA2023), London 2 June 2023.

Please contact Mark Wilson (M.Wilson@leeds.ac.uk) for more information.