Lucia Nicola has been connected with M2i since she started her PhD in Mathematics and Physics at University of Groningen in 1999. Currently she is supervising a M2i project on “Modelling Micro and nano-scale failure in complex microstructures”.
Lucia Nicola Associate Professor at the department Materials Science and Engineering of the University of Technology in Delft has recently been awarded a ERC Consolidator Grant. The project received 2 million euro’s . The objective is to reach a better understanding of metal friction and solid lubrication.
Lubrication is a commonly adopted solution to reduce friction. Graphite is a broadly used solid lubricant for large scale applications, while the lubricating properties of few-layers graphene hold great promise especially for smaller scale applications.
The objective of this work is to reach an improved understanding of metal friction and lubrication by accounting for all relevant phenomena occurring from the atomic to the macro-scale, and their interplay. To this end, a seamless concurrent multi-scale model will be developed. The power of this new model lies in its capability of describing three-dimensional bodies with realistic roughness in sliding lubricated contact, with the accuracy of an atomistic simulation.
Source: Delft University of Technology