Introducing the Tribis Tribo-Spectrometer™

Tribometers are the standard measuring devices used by engineers and material researchers to test material surfaces for wear and friction performance in various testing configurations.  There is already a range of commercially available, proven tribometers in the marketplace, from basic “static weight” designs to high technology in-situ displacement measuring designs.  So why introduce yet another tribometer?  Simple, Tribis hasn’t developed just another “me too” tester.

Currently available machines are designed to perform a single, or perhaps a short sequence of tests before requiring “hands-on” breakdown and resetting for additional tests.  In addition, limited measurement resolution potential inherent in the field requires long test duration to achieve sufficient wear for reliable measurement.   Both of these limitations drive the time and cost issues commonly associated with PV wear and friction testing.  Tribis’ tribometer breaks test time and cost barriers with ultra-sensitive measurement methods and sophisticated machine controls.  The result is a test system that efficiently obtains results across a wide spectrum of test parameters.  In fact, we prefer to call our tribometers by the name of “Tribo-Spectrometer™.”

Our first Tribo-Spectrometer™ configuration is the TS-01D.  It defines the principle of Tribo-Spectrometry as it is the most efficient, most sensitive regular sized automatic tribometer available today.  The TS-01D was created out of research designed to address the cost and time issues associated with obtaining comprehensive wear and friction data for plane bearing materials.  Through the prototype’s design, construction and refinement process, Tribis successfully developed a measurement and feedback system around an extremely sensitive, high frequency dual differential laser measurement design (patent pending).  This system is the heart of Tribis’ Tribo-Spectrometers™.

The novel differential laser design enables wear detection at resolutions as minute as 10 nanometers. High frequency sampling of both the laser signals and additional test parameters (e.g., force, speed, temperature, etc.) provides real-time data inputs for the proprietary machine control and test logic software.   A user friendly test set-up process, remote monitoring, message push capability (e.g., email notices of test status), and a suite of data management, analytic and reporting software are integral features that offer ease of use and speed in obtaining results.

The TS-01D is a “vertical drive” platform supporting test configurations such as rotating disc and thrust washer testing.  The features pioneered in the TS-01D will be incorporated in Tribis’ future standard configuration testers including a horizontal drive tester (e.g., pin on disk, sleeve tester, etc.) and a multi-axis tester.