Prof. Dae-Eun Kim, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea

Prof. Dae-Eun Kim is currently a Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering and the Director of the Center for Nano-Wear (CNW) at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea. CNW was established in 2010 as part of the Creative Research Initiative program sponsored by the National Research Foundation of Korea. Prof. Kim received his B.S. from Tufts Univ., and M.S. and Ph.D. from M.I.T. He was an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University before joining Yonsei University in 1993. Prof. Kim is the Vice President of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering and the 2018 President of the Korean Tribology Society. He is the Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Tribology, Editorial Board member of Tribology Letters, Advances in Tribology, and Friction. He also served as the Editor-in-Chief of IJPEM and Senior Editor of JMST. He is also the Chair of the Technical Committee for Tribology of International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM). He has received various awards from KSME, KSPE, KSTLE, ASME Best Paper Award in Journal of Tribology and also the Minister Award from Korea Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

Speech Title: Friction and Wear Reduction of Micro-scale Systems

Aims: Reduction of wear of micro-scale mechanical components during operation is important to assure high precision as well as to prolong the life of the components. In this regard, the aim of this work was to develop techniques that can be applied to reduce wear of mechanical components that experience contact sliding under relatively low applied loads.

Methods: Typically, liquid lubricants are widely used to reduce friction and wear of mechanical components. However, for micro-scale systems in which the applied loads are low, such lubrication method may not be effective due to the surface tension effect of the lubricants. In this work, the concept of using functional coatings to reduce friction and wear under dry sliding conditions was demonstrated. Furthermore, the effectiveness of using self-assembled monolayers for reducing the surface damage of micro-scale components was assessed.

Results: The experimental results showed that friction and wear of mechanical components under relatively low applied loads could be effectively reduced by using functional coatings. Furthermore, a nano-lubricant based on self-assembled monolayers proved to be effective in reducing friction and wear of micro-scale sliding systems.

Conclusions: For micro-scale mechanical components, liquid lubricants may not be effective due to the surface tension effects. In order to overcome this problem functional coatings and self-assembled monolayers could be utilized effectively. Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (No. 2010-0018289).