NIC Excellence Project – May 2019

The NIC Peer Review Board regularly awards "NIC Excellence Project" status to outstanding simulation projects. At its April meeting, the board took the decision to honour Prof. Lars Pastewka (University of Freiburg) for his projects “Friction of (hydro-)carbons at surfaces: Adsorbed surfactant layers and amorphous carbon” and “Micromechanics of metals: non-affine deformations and phonons”. The projects, which have been granted computing time on JUWELS, use large molecular dynamics calculations to understand frictional processes in exemplary material systems. Friction is responsible for 20% of global energy consumption and wear determines the lifetime of a mechanical component. There is still a lack of quantitative understanding regarding these phenomena, however, since the underlying processes require models that span many length scales and often depend on the material under consideration at the molecular scale. The results will reveal how energy is dissipated and how a material’s microstructure and surface topography respond to mechanical load. This will enable a rational optimization of material systems for reliable and energy-efficient mechanical components. Further information can be found at https://www.john-von-neumann-institut.de/en/research/nic-excellence-projects/2019-1 (in German).

Contact: Dr. Alexander Trautmann, coordination-office@fz-juelich.de

from JSC News No. 265, 21 May 2019