The Cranfield IMRC vision is to grow the existing world class research activity through the development and interaction between:Manufacturing Technologies and Product/Service Systems that move UK manufacturing up the value chain to provide high added value manufacturing business opportunities.This research vision builds on the existing strengths and expertise at Cranfield and is complementary to the activities at other IMRCs. It represents a unique combination of manufacturing research skills and resource that will address key aspects of the UK's future manufacturing needs. The research is multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral and is designed to promote knowledge transfer between sectors. To realise this vision the Cranfield IMRC has two interdependent strategic aims which will be pursued simultaneously:1.To produce world/beating process and product technologies in the areas of precision engineering and materials processing.2.To enable the creation and exploitation of these technologies within the context of service/based competitive strategies.

Tribology is the essential underpinning science of lubrication, friction and wear and therefore is paramount to the efficient operation of numerous mechanical systems such as engines, gearboxes, human joint implants, manufacturing, sustainable energy and ship performance just to name a few. The specific field of green or environment-friendly tribology emphasizes the green or clean technology aspects of wear, friction and lubrication of interacting surfaces in relative motion in numerous mechanical systems. The interaction of these surfaces is of importance for energy or environmental sustainability and has impact upon today's environment. This includes tribological technology that mimics living nature and thus is expected to be environment-friendly, the control of friction and wear that is of importance for energy conservation and conversion (thus emissions and carbon footprint), enhanced manufacturing techniques such as chemical mechanical polishing, environmental aspects of lubrication and surface modification techniques as well as tribological aspects of green applications such as the wind-power and tidal turbines. The area of green tribology will therefore directly affect the economy by reducing waste and extending equipment life, improve the quality of life and will help reduce the carbon footprint of many mechanical systems. It will also help address the need for increased resource responsibility and lower the health risks by creation of legislation compliant surfaces and coatings to replace potential hazardous coatings currently being used. The proposal is from a group that is very able to manage the highly innovative and challenging research into the new area of Green Tribology. The group will be able to join various disciplines together that are essential to establishing a multidisciplinary team, namely chemistry, tribology, mechanical engineering, surface science, material science and manufacturing. The grant would focus on developing the right environment for innovative research and new directions to be studied and therefore designs for managing a flexible research portfolio are presented. The research would cover modelling and experimental approaches. The team will build world-leading and disruptive research solutions and demonstrators in green tribo-materials and natural product chemistry, tribo-metrology, tribo-electrochemistry, tribo-smart coatings, tribo-sensing to develop green tribology solutions.

In order to reduce CO2 emissions and thus limit global warming we need to reduce energy consumption. One way to do this is to make the machines that we use in everyday life, ranging from car engines to washing machine motors and bearings, more efficient. This is particularly important since there is a huge rate of growth in the use of machines in countries such as China and India as these become more prosperous. There are several strategies for increasing machine efficiency but one of the most effective is to reduce mechanical friction. So far this has been done mainly by using lower viscosity lubricants, which have less friction drag. However, this approach is reaching the end of its usefulness since, it also leads to thinner fluid films between rubbing surfaces, which eventually results in high wear as well as even more friction. The solution now lies in improving the performance of surfaces films, which can protect components and reduce friction regardless of lubricant viscosity. These are called boundary films, and must be made to form more quickly and durably, and give lower friction. This is currently impossible since, despite a century of research and widespread commercial use, there is inadequate understanding of the mechanisms by which they form. The biggest gap in our understanding concerns the way that the rubbing process stimulates film formation. When solids are rubbed together actual contact occurs only at a few high spots on the surfaces. The conditions at these contact points are extremely severe, with very high local stresses which plastically deform the rubbing surfaces. Under such conditions, a phenomenon called "triboemission" occurs; i.e. fundamental particles such as electrons, ions and photons are ejected from the surfaces. These energetic particles promote a series of chemical reactions in the lubricant present that leads, ultimately, to the formation of protective boundary lubricating films. These particles can also have harmful effects such as causing lubricant film degradation on computer hard drives. In order to improve boundary film formation we need to understand triboemission and its effect on lubricants. Unfortunately these processes occur between a pair of rubbing surfaces, where it is difficult to see and measure. Furthermore, particles emitted react almost instantly with the lubricant present, and are obscured by the competing influences of frictional heating and extreme pressure. This makes research on triboemission very challenging to carry out, which is why we currently know so little about it. The research group which I aim to build will develop and apply a series of novel experimental techniques to study triboemission and to monitor its impact on lubricants and boundary film formation. The key is to look at each stage of the emission and film formation process and link these together. Particle detection apparatus will be built and incorporated into friction testing equipment. Thermal mapping will be used to distinguish triboemission from other causal factors, while fluorescence imaging (currently used mainly in biomedical applications to study molecule mobility) will help track transient reaction species in the lubricant. Additionally, the application of scanning probes will pioneer the mapping of emission and allow correlation with surface properties. In this way, the series of interactions that occur between lubricant and environment will be unravelled. With industrial support, this understanding will be used to design enhanced surface and lubricant combinations. The result will be improved friction performance and, in certain critical applications, protection of the lubricant from degradation. This summary has focussed on engineering contacts but triboemission is also believed to play a decisive role in the lubrication of bio-contacts and micro-contacts, where friction is a significant factor in performance. These applications will also be studied in my research.

This Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) is in the field of Polymers, Soft Matter and Colloids. This area of science deals with long-chain molecules, gels, particles, pastes and complex fluids. It is of fundamental importance for many commercial sectors, including paints & coatings, home & personal care products, agrochemicals, engine oils & lubrication, enhanced oil recovery, biomedical devices & drug delivery. Thus substantial EPSRC investment in this industrially-relevant field will directly support the UK economy and enhance its competitiveness over the longer term, as well as contributing to our scientific capacity to address important technical challenges and major societal problems such as sustainability and energy security. Sheffield Polymer Centre academics have a wealth of research experience in the areas of polymer chemistry, polymer physics, colloid science, soft matter physics and polymer engineering. This breadth of expertise is unique and is certainly unrivalled anywhere in the UK. Between us, we offer a superb range of research facilities and state-of-the-art instrumentation that provide excellent postgraduate training opportunities. We have also run a popular annual industrial training course and three relevant taught MSc courses for many years. Thus the logistical experience of our current administrative staff and existing teaching infrastructure will provide invaluable support in running this new CDT. Moreover, this prior activity underlines our institution's deep commitment to this important interdisciplinary field. Our vision is to engage closely with a wide range of companies, e.g. AkzoNobel, Lubrizol, P & G, Cytec, Synthomer, Scott Bader, GEO, Wellstream, LBFoster, Philips, Ossila, Syngenta, DSM, Ashland, BP and Unilever, in order to provide the next generation of highly skilled PhD scientists with high-level technical skills, intellectual rigour, excellent communication skills, flexibility and business acumen. This is essential if we are to produce the creative problem-solvers that will be required to tackle the many formidable technical and societal challenges now facing mankind. Our ambition is to secure at least £2.0 million from our industrial partners in order to support fifty CASE PhD projects over five years. Six PhD studentships p.a. (i.e. thirty in total) are requested from EPSRC, which will be supplemented by a substantial institutional contribution of three studentships p.a. (i.e. fifteen in total). This institutional commitment is in recognition of the continuing strategic importance of this research area to the University of Sheffield. An additional studentship p.a. (i.e. five in total) will be funded by top-slicing the enhanced CASE contributions from our industrial partners to make up the annual cohort of ten students. EPSRC investment in this CDT is warranted given our substantial institutional portfolio of many active EPSRC grants (including Programme and Platform grants), plus a £2.0 M ERC grant. Our CDT training programme will include the following highly distinctive features: (i) our unrivalled breadth of academic knowledge and experience; (ii) a choice of research projects for our PhD students prior to their enrolment; (iii) an initial two-week training course on the basic principles of polymer science and engineering; (iv) a monthly seminar programme led by industrial scientists to expose our students to a wide range of commercially-relevant topics; (v) a six-month secondment with the industrial partner in the latter part of the research programme, which will provide our students with invaluable experience of the workplace and hence prepare them for their industrial and/or managerial careers; (vi) a 'business enterprise' course led by an external consultant (Jo Haigh) and one of our industrial partners (Synthomer) to develop and encourage entrepreneurial flair in each PhD cohort; (vii) a visit to an overseas academic laboratory to facilitate international collaboration.