OYSTER

Abstract

OYSTER: Open characterisation and modelling environment to drive innovation in advanced nano-architectured and bio-inspired hard/soft interfaces

A failure to quantitatively control adhesion costs billions of euros each year in failed components, suboptimal product performance and life-threatening infections. Nano-enabled and bio-inspired products offer practical solutions to overcome adhesion and friction problems in these application areas. Current tools and methodologies, however, have so far failed to produce any standardised interpretation of adhesion data linking nanoscale adhesion to the macroscopic data.  OYSTER uses contact mechanics to bridge adhesion data at multiple length scales and link interfacial adhesion to physicochemical properties. OYSTER brings Europe’s first-class laboratories and SMEs to take existing nanoscale characterisation technologies towards widespread utilisation in process optimisation and model validation.  OYSTER achieves this by sharing metadata in an Open Innovation Environment, where new paradigms of multi-scale contact mechanics are validated on selected application oriented reference materials through continuous interaction with the European Materials Characterisation Council (EMCC). This way, OYSTER generates wider agreement over adhesion measurement protocols by multimodal Atomic Force Microscopy and high-speed nanoindentation.

Consortium

Universita Degli Studi Roma TRE (Coordinator), National Technical University of Athens, UL, NPL Management LTD, Politecnico Di Torino, Fraunhofer Gesellschaft Zur Foerderung Der Angewandten, Forschung E.V., Thales SA, Plasmachem Produktions-Und Handel GMBH, Nanoforce Technology Limited, Nanosurf AG, Cambridge Nanomaterials Technology LTD, Goldbeck Consulting LTD, Innovation in Research & Engineering Solutions, Spectrum Instruments LTD, Funcoats SA.

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