Our unique tribological approach consists in studying asperities interactions within a microscopic real contact area in air, vacuum or liquid medium, because any macro-sliding is always preceded by nano-slipping events on numerous asperities displaying different shapes and rheological properties.
We aim at understanding these interactions, because they are the essential key-point for designing new tribo-electric generators for energy harvesting or self-powered sensors, tribo-active surfaces for MEMS, or surfaces submitted to tribo-corrosion.
We possess three macrotribometers and three nanotribometers in air and vacuum and have developed specific numerical tools for tribological simulations and in-situ wear assessment