Simulations lead to design of near-frictionless material Argonne scientists used Mira to identify an
Simulations lead to design of near-frictionless material
Argonne scientists used Mira to identify and improve a new mechanism for eliminating friction, which fed into the development of a hybrid material that exhibited superlubricity at the macroscale for the first time. Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) researchers helped enable the groundbreaking simulations by overcoming a performance bottleneck that doubled the speed of the team’s code.
While reviewing the simulation results of a promising new lubricant material, Argonne researcher Sanket Deshmukh stumbled upon a phenomenon that had never been observed before.
“I remember Sanket calling me and saying ‘you have got to come over here and see this. I want to show you something really cool,’” said Subramanian Sankaranarayanan, Argonne computational nanoscientist, who led the simulation work at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
They were amazed by what the computer simulations revealed. When the lubricant materials–graphene and diamond-like carbon (DLC)–slid against each other, the graphene began rolling up to form hollow cylindrical “scrolls” that helped to practically eliminate friction. These so-called nanoscrolls represented a completely new mechanism for superlubricity, a state in which friction essentially disappears.
