5th Network Wide Event
date: October 17, 2022
category: News
Summary of the training event (10th of October – 13th of October 2022) in France
The fifth Network Wide Event (NWE) of the GreenTRIBOS project was organised in collaboration with the industrial partner of this project - Total Energies - and took place in Lyon (France). Due to some last minute Covid19 infections of ESRs, the event was organised in a hybrid way, via online Teams and ZOOM for those ESRs who had to stay at home. The 5th NWE consisted of two parts - the industry days and the beneficiary part.
The GreenTribos Industry Days in Total Energies bring many fruitful discussions between science and industry.
The Industry Days took place at Total Energies in Solaize (near Lyon). The first day was dedicated to the presentation of the GreenTRIBOS project to Total Energies employees. In particular, the ESRs' projects of interest to Total Energies were presented. The ESRs presented their project, the state of the art, the main objectives and the results, focusing on the things that are relevant for Total Energies. After each presentation, the Total Energies staff asked questions and the ESRs had the opportunity to find a possible collaboration with them, especially in terms of providing certain materials of interest to them. The first day ended with a presentation by Hakim El-Bahin from Total Energies, who presented the current development of lubricants and lubricant formulations for electric vehicles and the issues and challenges involved. The presentation also gave the ESRs an insight into the steps needed to move from relevant scientific results to commercialisation of the product. The discussion that followed focused on how research activities and results from academic groups can contribute to the green transition to electric mobility. The second day was dedicated to a tour of the Total Energies laboratories. ESRs and mentors were able to see how research and development activities in tribology and lubricant formulation are carried out at Total Energies and what techniques and experimental equipment are used. The second day ended with a workshop where ESRs and Total Energies staff discussed how to bridge the gap between basic scientific research and commercialisation. In this part, three gaps were discussed: how to bridge the gap from the nano (where most basic science research is done) to the macro level (the scale of the commercial product), how to perform tribological experiments to mimic real applications, and how electromobility affects tribological phenomena in lubricated contacts.
Joint picture of ESRs, mentors and Total Energies staff.
The second part of the 5th NWE was the beneficiary part, held in Lyon, where all ESRs presented the research done since the last NWE in March 2022, their objectives, progress and future plans including papers and secondments. Each presentation was followed by a discussion with other ESRs and mentors. Half a day of this part was also dedicated to meetings of the various committees and boards, including the student committee, where ESRs presented topics and ideas for soft skills, training and other transferable skills they would like to have at the next NWE in March 2023.
Joint picture of ESRs and their mentors.
