Worldwide Surface Topography Challenge

Wednesday, May 22, 2024
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Tribological performance depends on surface topography in virtually all real-world applications. Yet conventional roughness parameters are insufficient predicters of adhesion, friction, and wear. Thus, there is a need for re-examination of surface topography by the entire tribology community.

This plenary session will feature the Worldwide Surface Topography Challenge, where groups from around the world characterized the topography of the same surface. More than 150 tribologists participated, representing over 60 research groups and private companies from more than 20 countries. Together they contributed 2,000+ individual measurements. This session will present the results of this two-year international collaboration.

Initially, the submitted results revealed wide disagreement on conventional roughness parameters such as Ra; yet when processed using multi-scale techniques, a clearer consensus emerged. First, the results provide concrete guidance on advantages and disadvantages of 12 common surface-measurement techniques. Second, this challenge establishes the single most comprehensive description of a surface that has ever been performed. The public release of all data and analysis enables researchers and manufacturers across the entire tribology community to reuse, analyze, and benchmark against the results. Finally, these findings aid in the development of next-generation surface descriptors that better predict surface properties and can be used as manufacturing specifications to create better-performing products.
 

Session Organizer:
Dr. Tevis Jacobs, University of Pittsburgh
 
Tevis D.B. Jacobs is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Pittsburgh. He received the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and holds two endowed fellowships at Pitt—the Whiteford Family Fellowship and the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Faculty Fellowship. He is an associate editor for the ASME Journal of Tribology and sits on the editorial boards of Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties as well as the STLE-affiliated journal, Tribology Letters. He is also the president and co-founder of Surface Design Solutions, which uses physics-informed machine learning to reduce costs in manufacturing.