About the facility
This facility combines the Advanced Coatings System and the Environmental Tribology Suite to provide industrial-scale coating capability with tribological testing under controlled environments. Tribology is the study of interacting surfaces in motion, with a focus on the principles of wear, friction and lubrication.
The Advanced Coatings System develops advanced functional surfaces for both fundamental research and industrial applications. The system combines multiple vacuum-based coating techniques and supports different substrate types within a single industrial-scale chamber. It enables the development and scale-up of coatings on component-sized samples or those with complex morphologies.
Advanced coatings are used to engineer surfaces in major industry sectors including space, aerospace, automotive, construction, offshore power generation, energy materials, semiconductors and biomedical applications.
The Environmental Tribology Suite facilitates tribological testing for materials and coatings across a wide range of environmental conditions, including simulating demanding applications. The bespoke tribometer provides mechanical and tribological assessment of materials and coatings for friction, wear, material degradation and durability.
This facility is part of the Henry Royce Institute and is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Funding and access options
If you’re from another academic institution, a research technology organisation, or a UK-based SME, you may be able to access the Advanced Coatings Systems and the Environmental Tribology Suite through Royce’s equipment access schemes.
If you’re a researcher based at the University of Leeds, enquire to explore access options. If you’re a business, learn more about access options for our facilities.
Available equipment
- Hauzer Flexicoat 850, a uniquely tailored plasma vapour deposition (PVD) and plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) system with industrial sized chamber, with closed-field unbalanced magnetron sputtering, arc evaporation, high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS), a high-power pulsed microwave source, PECVD from metal-organic precursors, radio-frequency bias and nanoparticle source.
- Environmental tribometer for performing tribological testing in a range of environments, from ambient pressure to vacuum, air to gaseous (argon, nitrogen and low-pressure hydrogen), dry to humid, liquid to solid lubricants, and cryo to high temperatures.
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