Replication and Tribological Engineering of Physical Surfaces Using Two-Photon Lithography

Student: Shelby Maddox

Degree: Ph.D., May 2021

Major Professor: Dr. Min Zou

Research Area(s):

Conventional Materials & Processes

Nanoscience & Engineering

View Research Quadslide

Background

  • Replication techniques are difficult to apply to many biosurfaces, and large amounts of data are difficult to process for fabrication.
  • Nearly 10% of all automotive energy waste comes from the interface between the piston compression ring and the cylinder liner.
  • There is a need to reduce this friction using surface texturing

Innovation

  • A digitization and tiling process is applied to scanned height data to reduce processing need and expand replication capability.
  • Hierarchical textures can be combined with biomimetic designs.
  • Inspiration from nature can be used to improve friction.

.Approach

Learning from nature

  • What biostructures do natural surfaces use to reduce friction?
  • The designs are created with 3D modeling software.                                                                                                                                                                                     Two photon lithography to create physical structures
  • Printing process allows quick turnaround of testing and development cycle.
  • Truly 3D surfaces can be created not just extruded shapes.                                                                                                                                                       Digitization and replication by tiling
  • Digitization of surfaces allows non contact replication of topographies.
  • Other fields using tiling processes to generate large outputs from small inputs.

Key Results

  • Results show significant friction reduction due to special combination of surface features, published in Journal of Tribology.
  • Paper published in Journal of Manufacturing Processes on surface replication of biological surfaces, and in Biointerphases on friction reduction from those surface topographies.

Potential Applications

  • Quick testing cycle of parameter-modified surfaces before robust, complex fabrication.
  • Reduction of friction in lubricated interfaces.

Future/Ongoing Work

  • Many bioinspired designs can be studied nondestructively.
  • Impact of textures in industrial materials