© 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, received his PhD in physics from TU Wien in 2012, 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

• Plastic deformation in tribological interfaces
• Computational tribochemistry

Personal links

• Google Scholar
• ResearchGate
• ViViMaT

© Philipp G. Grützmacher

Philipp G. Grützmacher joined the tribology research division at TU Wien in late 2019. 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.

Current research topic

Personal links

• Google Scholar
• ResearchGate
• 2DMaT

© André Rudnytskyj

André Rudnytskyj graduated in Mechanical Engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Brazil, which included 2 semesters abroad under an awarded scholarship at the University of Queensland, in Australia. During and after obtaining his degree, he worked with research in the Finite Element Method, and with mechanical design and development of induction motors in the industry. In 2018, he completed his M.Sc. at the Luleå University of Technology, in Sweden, after being awarded a scholarship to take part on the EU-funded Joint European Master in Tribology of Surfaces and Interfaces TRIBOS. Currently, André works as researcher at AC2T research GmbH, in Austria, and is also enrolled in the Doctoral Programme in Technical Sciences at TU Wien, working in the modelling of tribological aspects of metal forming processes.

Current research topic

Personal links

• ResearchGate

© 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.

Current research topic

Hakan Göçerler studied mechanical engineering at Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Turkey. His Master's thesis, "Submicrometric Evaluation of Workpiece Surfaces in the Precision Manufacturing and Nanotechnology" was written within a collaborative project and accepted at the TU Wien. Following his Master's thesis, he started working at the Helmholtz Center Geesthacht on a project about the joining and assessment of hydrogen tanks. He was then accepted into the European project WEMESURF. He spent a year at the CIMaINa University of Milano for the determination of mechanical properties of human skin using atomic force microscopy. The following year he was employed by the Philips Applied Technologies Center Eindhoven within the framework of the WEMESURF project, working on a design of a tribosystem to analyze contact lens-corneal cell line interactions. After the WEMESURF project, he was hired at the AC2T Research GmbH and continued working on tribology-based projects, focusing primarily on biotribological applications. He is working at the TU Wien on constructing a high-accuracy six-axis tribometer for modeling mechanical components of friction/wear and on project proposals with research interests in tribodiagnostics, nano-micro scale contact modeling, and biotribology.

© 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.

Current research topic

© 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.

Current research topic

© 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

• Researchgate
• ACR Start-up award for fautech

© 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.

© Yana Xiao

Yana XIAO is currently a PhD candidate in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and acting as an exchange scholar at TU Wien under the instruction of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Carsten Gachot with the support of Ernst Mach Grant-Worldwide scholarship Eurasia-Pacific Uninet (EPU). Her research topic is about energy harvesting and triboelectric nanogenerator (TENGs), especially two-dimensional materials for enhancement of the electricity output of triboelectric nanogenerators and aims to get some research product of the relation between tribological and triboelectric properties for multifunctional application of TENGs with wear resistance.

© 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".

© Florian Huber

I have been studying mechanical engineering at TU Wien since 2013 and wrote my bachelor's thesis in the field of tribology on the topic of "Investigation of tribological effects in eccentric screw pumps". In the master's degree, I specialized in failure analysis and laser technology. My focus in choosing the topic for the master's thesis was the combination of materials science and analytics with laser technology, and 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 advancing hydrogen propulsion as a more sustainable alternative to conventional combustion engines and battery-powered vehicles.

© Stefan Bug

In 2019, I completed my bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Munich University of Applied Sciences with a bachelor's thesis on the topic of "Tribological investigation of gear oils using a translational oscillation test rig". This was done in cooperation with the company Optimol Instruments Prüftechnik GmbH. Afterwards, I continued my education with a master's degree in materials science and materials engineering at Saarland University. Since the end of 2021, I have been completing an Erasmus internship here in the tribology research group, where I will be writing my master's thesis in the tribological investigations of solid lubricants in the field of 2D materials in cooperation with Saarland University starting in October.

© 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.