Team
Head of research group
© Carsten Gachot
Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Carsten Gachot
Carsten Gachot received his PhD from the Saarland University in Germany in 2012 where he studied the effects of laser interference patterning on the microstructure and topography of metallic surfaces with a focus on tribological applications under Prof. Dr. Frank Mücklich and Prof. Dr. Martin H. Müser. For this work, Dr. Gachot was awarded by the European Honda initiation grant in 2011. Prof. Gachot was academic visitor at the tribology Group at the Imperial College London and is currently the head of the tribology research unit at the TU Wien. Additionally, Prof. Gachot is a visiting Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago de Chile and chief editor of the peer reviewed journal "Industrial Lubrication and Tribology of the Emerald Publishing Group Leeds UK.
PostDocs
© Stefan J. Eder
Stefan J. Eder has been leading the nanoscopic modeling activities in the tribology division of Carsten Gachot at the TU Wien since 2018. His main research interests include computational analysis of the near-surface microstructural development in polycrystalline alloys under tribological load as well as the reactive simulation of tribochemical phenomena. Dr. Eder is also a principal scientist at the Austrian Excellence Center for Tribology (AC2T research), which is one of the world’s largest private research service providers in tribology. He has been active in the field of tribology since 2007, earned his PhD in physics from TU Wien in 2012 and received his habilitation in computational materials tribology in 2024. He authored some 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and contributed to around 80 conferences, including more than 10 invited talks. He has been involved in winning several national and international research grants (FFG, FET-Open, Horizon2020), serves as a member of the early career editorial board of Tribology Letters, and organizes the recurring Vienna Virtual Materials Tribology Workshop (ViViMaT) on YouTube.
Current research topics
Personal links
© Hakan Göçerler
Hakan Göçerler studied mechanical engineering at Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Turkey. His master's thesis entitled "Submicrometric Evaluation of Workpiece Surfaces in the Precision Manufacturing and Nanotechnology" was written as part of a cooperative project and accepted at the Vienna University of Technology. Following his Master's thesis, he worked at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht on a project on the joining and evaluation of hydrogen tanks. He was then accepted into the European project WEMESURF. He spent a year at the CIMaINa University of Milan to determine the mechanical properties of human skin using atomic force microscopy. The following year, he was employed by the Philips Applied Technologies Center Eindhoven as part of the WEMESURF project, where he worked on the development of a tribosystem to analyze the interactions between contact lenses and corneal cells. After the WEMESURF project, he was employed at AC2T Research GmbH and continued his work on tribology-based projects, mainly focusing on biotribological applications. In 2023, Hakan Göçerler received his doctorate from the Vienna University of Technology. Today, he is working there on the design of a high-precision six-axis tribometer for modeling mechanical components of friction/wear and on project proposals with research interests in tribodiagnostics, contact modeling in the nano-micro range and biotribology.
© Pierluigi Bilotto
Pierluigi Bilotto did his undergraduate studies in physics at University of Calabria (Italy). The bachelor thesis was on bouncing droplets as fluid dynamics macroscopic objects able to mimic properties of the quantum world. The master thesis was on the nanomechanics of recombinant mussel foot proteins to reveal the adhesion mechanisms that could grant accessibility to a glue working underwater. P. Bilotto received his PhD at TU Wien in 2021 under the supervision of prof. M. Valtiner. The scope of the PhD thesis was to reveal the adhesive behaviour of bio interfaces in extreme conditions such as high electrolyte concentration, and competition or cooperation of elements decorating the bio interface.
Right after the PhD, P.Bilotto started as Senior Researcher in CEST (centre for electrochemistry and surface technologies) in Wiener Neustadt (2021). There, he started to work on two-dimensional materials (2DM) such as graphene oxide and MXenes. On the latter, he was focusing on open questions about their production, electronic applications, or integration in biointerfaces. He managed and co-supervised projects in the field of nanomechanics, for instance for the removal of nanoparticles or the adhesion of human collagen involving industrial partners and international collaborators.
In the group P. Bilotto will focus on understanding tribology at the nanoscale involving 2DMs and biointerfaces.
Personal Links:
PhD students
© Marin Herr
Marin Herr studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Central Hesse in Giessen. His master's thesis at the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics (EMI) in Freiburg focused on the experimental and numerical investigation of impact processes on ceramic-rubber composite plates used in heavy industry for wear protection. This work was done in cooperation with the tribology research center AC2T research GmbH in Wiener Neustadt, where he has been employed as a researcher since 2020. Currently, M. Herr is working on the modeling of dynamic polymer seals under reciprocal loading to predict their tribological properties and service life using the finite element method (FEM) as part of his doctoral studies.
© Franz Kroiss
Franz Kroiss is a PhD student in mechanical engineering at the TU Wien. He has been working as a production engineer at voestalpine Stahl GmbH for several years. Since 2021, Franz Kroiss is writing his thesis on tribological relationships of high-pressure grinding of casted steel slabs under the supervision of Carsten Gachot. The evolution of the friction coefficient and the processes taking place under dry friction in connection with surface topography and microstructural properties are the content of this work. The results are to serve as a basis for further optimization in the form of a prediction model.
© Maja Srbulovic
I have graduated from the University of Nis in Serbia with five years degree in Electronic
Engineering on the study program Telecommunications.
Through all my years of studying, I became fascinated by the research field in engineering and
technology and for this reason I am now a PhD-student at TU Wien –
Doctoral Program in Technical Science.
Being employed full time at AC2T research GmbH (DAT pool) gives me a great opportunity to
work in research projects in field that is a part of my professional goals and also to publish,
research results in international journals.
To date, my experience as a junior scientist has been extremely productive, and we have
achieved amazing results in the field of Tribology, especially in structural superlubricity and
modeling of boundary lubricated contacts.
In collaboration with Privatdoz. Dr.rer.nat. András Vernes (CMS, IAP TU Wien & AC2T)
© Azhaarudeen Anifa Mohamed Faruck
Azhaarudeen Anifa Mohamed Faruck is currently working as a project assistant at TU Wien, Austria and since 2017 he is pursuing his Ph.D. studies on the topic of loss of lubrication in Helicopter gearbox. He was working as Junior Scientist at AC2T research GmbH, from 2014 to 2020 performing research activities focused on surface contacts and lubrication. He studied Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering at FH Wiener Neustadt, Austria. He has a great interest in experimental research in lubrication, solid lubricant coatings, surface texturing, and friction & wear characterization for both industrial and aerospace applications.
© Surya Kannan Peesapati
Surya Kannan Peesapati graduated in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (ETIT) at Technische Universtät Chemnitz, Germany. Throughout his post-graduate studies, he carried out numerous research and experiments on Vision for Robots and Image Processing algorithms and mastered in Sensor fusion applications. His Master’s Thesis is all about “Speed and Separation Monitoring for Heavy duty Industrial Robots with LiDAR and Camera Fusion.” After being awarded with M.Sc. in 2020, followed by his thesis he got an opportunity to continue his research with TU Wien as a Pre-Doctoral Researcher. He is currently a Junior Scientist at AC2T Research GmbH, where his primary area of research is data science in tribology. In the scope of this activity, he is working on his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Carsten Gachot at TU Wien.
© Florian Ausserer
Studied systems engineering at the Interstate University of Applied Sciences Buchs (Switzerland) and materials science in Innsbruck. Furthermore, Florian has 11 years of professional experience in the field of tribology, which he acquired as a project manager at V-Research GmbH.
Florian is the founder of fautech gmbh in Dornbirn (AT) and is also enrolled in the PhD program in technical sciences at the TU Wien. His research focuses on the compression of refrigerants with a rotary piston compressor, where the sealing system consists of a tribologically modified polymer and a surface-modified metallic counterpart, with a main focus on natural refrigerants e.g. CO2.
Personal links
© Alejandra Ventura
Alejandra Ventura completed her studies in mechanical engineering at Universidad Centroamericana "José Simeón Cañas" (UCA) in El Salvador and completed two semesters abroad at Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. During her bachelor's thesis she worked in CFD simulations in collaboration with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. She spent three years working in the industry for Pepsico Mexico Foods where she gained knowledge from the industrial operation and business strategy, holding roles in the largest production site in Mexico and later becoming part of the CAPEX team for the engineering department with a national scope on the operations of the company.
In 2019 she was awarded a scholarship from the EU-funded Joint European Master in Tribology of Surfaces and Interfaces TRIBOS, in her master thesis at Luleå University of Technology she worked on the mechanical and tribological characterization of UHMWPE composites reinforced with recycled carbon fibers, also providing an economical evaluation on the benefits of their use. Nowadays, Alejandra is part of the Tribosystem-Modelling & Simulation department in AC2T research GmbH in Austria and is also enrolled in the doctoral program in technical sciences at TU Wien. Her research is focused on the determination of material parameters by relying on scratch tests along with the development of Material Point Method (MPM) simulations of such scratches to perform a multivariate analysis that allows this nondestructive test to provide deeper insights on the studied materials.
© Balazs Jakab
Balazs Jakab studied mechanical engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, specialising in medical technology. He wrote his diploma thesis in 2007 on the magnetic fixation of dental prostheses. After graduating, he moved to Austria and has been living in the Wiener Neustadt area ever since. His professional career began in January 2008 at the Austrian Competence Centre for Tribology (AC2T research GmbH), where he currently works as a senior researcher in the Tribometric Analysis of Materials (TAM) department. His area of responsibility is the supervision of laboratory tests, in which the friction and wear behaviour of different material pairings is determined under appropriate boundary conditions. He is responsible for handling individual measurement orders from the planning phase to completion. He has been responsible for various multi-company projects within the Comet programmes (formerly XTribology, currently InTribolgy) since 2013. As a result, he works closely with Aerospace & Advanced Composites GmbH in Wiener Neustadt.
For almost 15 years, his scientific focus has been on tribological challenges in paper manufacturing and the paper industry respectively. Since 2010, he has been the project manager of a research project at AC2T, which is working on both fundamental tribological issues and operation-specific tasks in the field of paper machines. The project is carried out in cooperation with the Austrian Association of Pulp and Paper Chemists and Technicians (ÖZEPA), with several paper mills and companies from the supply industry participating. The current focus of the project activities lies on the process itself and on the tribologically guided design of highly stressed roll surfaces. This project serves as the basis for his planned dissertation entitled "For understanding tribological stresses and processes in the nip of highly stressed rolls in the paper industry".
© Leonarda Vukonic
Leonarda Vukonic obtained her bachelor´s and master´s degree in mechanical engineering with focus on materials engineering at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Croatia. In 2019, being among top 3% of the most successful students, she was awarded with Davorin Bazjanac prize for excellence in studying. In 2022 she moved to Austria and started working as a Junior Scientists at AC2T research GmbH. There, she is an active team member of Materials & Surface Characterisation unit, where she performs a wide range of experiments on different instruments, like SEM, 3D Confocal Microscope, Optical Microscope, Nanoindenter, Tribometer, Scratch Tester etc. During 2023 she actively participated in various projects dealing with Biotribology, which aroused great interest from her side and pushed her to gain PhD in this area. Currently, she is a leader of the project HydrogelCoating, where the main goal is to develop and evaluate a hydrogel-on-metal partial implant with the aim of mitigating damage of native cartilage left after hemiarthroplasty, and with that to extend the overall lifetime of the implant and reduce high revision surgeries rates.
© Gottfried Brunbauer
Gottfried Brunbauer obtained his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at Graz University of Technology in 2020. Two years later, he completed his master's degree in computational engineering, mechatronics and automotive engineering and safety with distinction. Alongside his studies, he gained practical experience at the Institute of Production Engineering at Graz University of Technology, where he deepened his interest in modeling and finite element simulation as part of his master's thesis.
After completing his studies, Gottfried worked at Kraken Innovations GmbH in the field of gearbox development. He contributed to the development of high-ratio coaxial gearboxes through static and dynamic numerical calculations.
Gottfried has been working in the simulation department at AC2T Research GmbH since fall 2023. There, he is intensively involved in the digitalization and optimization of tribometers in order to research the complex interaction between machine dynamics and contact forces. His doctoral thesis involves the modelling, simulation and digitization of a two-disc tribometer. His work focuses on the integration of contact models, the identification of model parameters and the development of a real-time capable tribometer model with the aim of creating reproducible test conditions and thus promoting the efficient development of new materials and surfaces.
© Daniel Pölzlberger
Daniel Pölzlberger studied Mechanical Engineering - Management at the TU Wien and successfully completed his master's degree in 2024 after a stay abroad at the EPFL in Lausanne. He has written his master's thesis about the influence of the gas atmosphere on the tribological properties of thin-film TMDs. Since, he has been working as a project assistant in both Prof Gachot's Tribology research group and Prof Riedl-Tragenreif's Applied Surface and Coating Technology research group. He is working on the synthesis of coatings and their tribological properties.
Current guest researchers
© Xudong Sui
Xudong Sui received his PhD from the Northeastern University in China in 2017 where he studied advanced hard coatings for high speed cutting titanium alloy under Prof. Dr. Qiang Wang and Prof. Dr. Guojian Li. After graduation, Dr. Sui joined Prof. Weimin Liu’s group in the State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Science. There, he was engaged in the design and preparation of high-performance lubricating and protective coatings and research on tribological mechanisms and was promoted to associate professor in 2018. He has authored more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed journals. Since 2024, he is a visiting researcher at TU Wien to continue his tribological research career at the Gachot Tribology Group.
Research Interests:
- PVD Coating Technology: MS, HIPIMS, In-tube Deposition, ARC…
- Advanced coatings: Nitride, Carbon based, 2D materials, High entropy…
- Tribology: Tribochemistry, Superlubricity, Solid lubrication…
Personal links
© Hanglin Li
Hanglin Li is a PhD student majoring in physical chemistry in East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST, China). He has studied in Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Science supervised by Prof. Jiusheng Li for five years, focusing on the interfacial lubrication of graphene oxide. He joined the Gachot’s Tribology Group at TU Wien in 2024 as a one-year visiting student supported by the Chinese Scholarship Council. In Vienna he continues his research on tribology on 2D materials.
Personal links
© Eslam Mahmoud
Eslam Mahmoud is an Egyptian PHD student who graduated from the Military Technical College in Cairo, Egypt, in 2014 with a Bachelor of Science in Automotive Engineering. He received his Master's degree in Studying Tribological Behavior for Composite Aircraft Brakes 2021 from Military Technical College in Cairo, Egypt. He worked as an associate lecturer at the Military Technical College for eight years before joining our Research group as a researcher and a PHD student. Eslam Research is currently researching frictional composite materials used in brake systems with the goal of minimizing brake wear and emissions.
Bachelor/Master students
© Hendrik Ehrich
Hendrik Ehrich is a Master's student in mechanical engineering, having written his Bachelor's thesis under the supervision of Dr. Stefan Eder. In the thesis, he dealt with the automatic detection and temporal and spatial tracking of deformation twins in molecular dynamics simulations of fcc metals. The resulting tool is being continuously developed and is publicly available on GitHub.
Personal links
General university employees
© Iris Eder
Technician for tribology & aircraft systems
I have completed my double apprenticeship as an electrical technician main module systems and operating technology and metal technician main module mechanical engineering technology. My fields of activity are milling, turning, creating CNC programs as well as installing, connecting and measuring electrical components and supervising and repairing the test benches.
© Christina Danecker
After Christina completed her bachelor's degree in industrial engineering and mechanical engineering, she continued with a master's degree of the same name at TU Wien. In her master's thesis in the field of tribology, she researched the synergy effects of laser-structured metal surfaces and novel 2D materials. The aim was to use the laser structures as a lubricant reservoir and thus improve tribological performance. The research results obtained represent an important first step in the development of innovative implant materials and offer the prospect of extending service life. This work is part of a collaboration focusing on the development of bioactive laser-structured biomaterials with MXene coating. After successfully completing her Master's degree, she will continue the work on her Master's thesis in the research project described.
Alumni
© Philipp G. Grützmacher
Philipp G. Grützmacher joined the tribology research division at TU Wien from 2019 to 2024 as a PostDoc. Before, he was active in the field of tribology at the Institute of Functional Materials, Saarland University led by Prof. Dr. Frank Mücklich, where he obtained his Ph.D. for the tribological investigation of multi-scale surface textures in October 2019. He has authored more than 35 papers in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals. In 2021 he joined the early career editorial board of Tribology Letters and in 2022 the editorial board of Tribology - Materials, Surfaces & Interfaces. Together with Prof. Dr. Andreas Rosenkranz from the University of Chile he organizes a monthly webinar series called 2D Materials in Tribology, where world-known experts talk about the most recent trends in the field.
Personal links
© André Rudnytskyj
André Rudnytskyj completed his mechanical engineering studies at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil and spent two semesters abroad at the University of Queensland in Australia on a scholarship. During and after graduation, he engaged in research in finite element methods and mechanical design and development of induction motors in industry. In 2018, he completed his master's degree at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden after receiving a scholarship to participate in the EU-funded Joint European Master in Tribology of Surfaces and Interfaces TRIBOS. In 2023, André received his PhD from the Vienna University of Technology on the topic of "Modeling tribological aspects of metal forming processes".
Persönliche Links
© Matteo Vezzelli
Matteo graduated in Chemistry from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He carried out his Master's thesis research at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, focusing on the design and synthesis of Rhenium complexes for bacterial imaging, under the supervision of Professors Massimiliano Massi and Luca Rigamonti.
Currently, Matteo is pursuing a Ph.D. in Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna, under the supervision of Professor Maria Clelia Righi. His research is focused in the field of materials science, in particular mechanochemistry, using ab initio simulations. He is also a visiting researcher at the Vienna University of Technology, where he collaborates with Professor Carsten Gachot on experimental and computational studies of solid lubrication.
Personal Links:
© Edoardo Marquis
Edoardo completed his master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Turin in 2020, focusing on the application and validation of semi-empirical computational approaches for predicting the chemical and physical properties of molecules and nano-clusters. Following this, he joined the Tribology Group at the University of Bologna under the supervision of Prof M. Clelia Righi, first as a post-graduate research assistant and from 2021 as a PhD candidate.
Edoardo’s research is focused on the investigation of new materials for tribological applications by means of density functional theory simulations. From the very beginning of his PhD period, he had the chance to collaborate closely with Prof. Gachot and Dr. Grützmacher, both experts on the study of 2D materials for solid lubrication. In November 2023, Edoardo started a six-month period as a visiting student in Prof. Gachot's Tribology Group, continuing his research on 2D materials and their applications in solid lubrication.
Personal Links:
© Marco De Stefano
Marco graduated in Management Engineering at University of Salerno in 2019 under the supervision of Professor Alessandro Ruggiero. The thesis involved the evaluation of Real Contact Area in mechanical couplings via statistical models and finite element approach. In this circumstance, a traineeship period of three months in Ljubljana, Slovenia was achieved at the laboratory for tribology and interface nanotechnology (Head of research group, Prof. Mitjan Kalin). From April 2020 to November 2021, he worked as researcher at University of Salerno regarding the contact mechanics in presence of friction. At the moment Marco is a PhD Student and Assistant Lecturer of the courses “Mechanics applied to the Machines” and “Tribology” at University of Salerno. His research activities are essentially focused on tribocorrosion phenomena as much as on Finite Element simulations of biomedical couplings. Lastly, he was a visiting researcher for four months at TU Wien where he collaborated with Professor Carsten Gachot and with Hakan Göçerler on the biotribology of knee prosthesis.
Personal Links:
© Florian Huber
Florian studied mechanical engineering at the TU Wien and wrote his bachelor's thesis in the field of tribology on the subject of "Investigation of tribological effects in progressive cavity pumps". In his Master's degree, he specialized in failure analysis and laser technology. His focus when choosing the topic for his master's thesis was the combination of materials science and analytics with laser technology, whereby the topic "Topographical, microstructural description and optimization of fuel cell membranes using laser texturing" was particularly suitable, which deals with the optimization of fuel cell electrodes using ultrashort pulse lasers with the aim of promoting hydrogen propulsion as a more sustainable alternative to conventional combustion engines and battery-powered vehicles.
© Stefan Bug
In 2019, Stefan completed his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Munich University of Applied Sciences with a bachelor's thesis on "Tribological analysis of gear oils using a translational oscillation test rig". This was done in cooperation with Optimol Instruments Prüftechnik GmbH. He then continued his education with a Master's degree in Materials Science and Engineering at Saarland University. At the end of 2021, he completed an Erasmus internship at the Vienna University of Technology in the Tribology research group, where he later completed his master's thesis in cooperation with Saarland University on tribological investigations of solid lubricants in the field of 2D materials.